argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Northern Ireland Protocol: Implementation Proposals — House of Commons, 2020-11-18
Topic: Agriculture
Hilary James Benn (Labour, Centre-left): This morning, the Committee on the Future Relationship with the European Union took evidence from the Ulster Farmers’ Union, the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium and Manufacturing NI. Their message was clear: Northern Ireland businesses and the supply chain will not be ready for 1 January, because they do not know what to plan for, they do not know what goods will be identified as being at risk, and they are not confident that customs facilities, checks and software will be ready in time. As the Minister knows, the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs itself says that it will not be possible to complete the necessary work by 1 January. Given the length of time the Government have had to prepare for the bits they do control, how on earth has it come to this?
Northern Ireland Protocol: Implementation Proposals — House of Commons, 2020-11-18
Topic: Foreign Trade
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): Peter MacSwiney, the chief executive of a customs agency, has said there is a "totally unacceptable level of risk" in getting the vital customs declaration service ready for 1 January and that it risks paralysing all of Northern Ireland’s trade movements. Ministers were warned in summer 2019 that industry will need a year to test, trial and implement this new system, so how can it be right, with 43 days left, that the final version has still not been delivered?
Northern Ireland Protocol: Implementation Proposals — House of Commons, 2020-11-18
Topic: International Affairs
Kevin Denis Brennan (Labour, Centre-left): Can I say to the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Scott Benton) that it is not up to him whether Northern Ireland remains in the UK in perpetuity? That is a matter for the people of Northern Ireland under the Good Friday agreement The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster told the Future Relationship with the European Union Committee on 8 October that border infrastructure in Northern Ireland would be ready for exit day, but the permanent secretary in charge of the project to deliver that infra- structure in Northern Ireland’s Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs has said that the project is unachievable and will not be finished until June by 2021. What is the Minister’s explanation for the difference between those two statements?
Northern Ireland Protocol: Implementation Proposals — House of Commons, 2020-11-18
Topic: Foreign Trade
Stephen John Doughty (Labour, Centre-left): I am sorry that the Prime Minister and the Minister still seem to be living in some sort of Trumpian fantasy land about the consequences of the clauses in the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill. I would urge them to listen to the voices on all sides in both Houses and, indeed, President-elect Biden on that issue. It is absolutely crucial that they do that Will the Minister give me a cast-iron guarantee that traders operating between the Welsh ports—Pembroke, Fishguard and Holyhead on Anglesey—and either the Republic of Ireland or with Northern Ireland in internal UK trade that transits the Republic of Ireland in either direction will not face any difficulties with IT systems, checks or processes come the end of the transition period?
Northern Ireland Protocol: Implementation Proposals — House of Commons, 2020-11-18
Topic: Foreign Trade
Matthew Toby Perkins (Labour, Centre-left): There was a time when the Conservative party was proud of the fact that it was the party of business, but those days seem to be long gone: we have a situation where business is telling the Government about the problems that these arrangements will cause. Businesses need certainty and time to put in place measures to make such fundamental changes. We have a Government who seem to be passionate about the fact of Brexit, but ignorant of the facts around it. Will the Minister just come to the Dispatch Box, take seriously the concerns that have been put in front of him by a whole array of business bodies, and try to sort this out?
Northern Ireland Protocol: Implementation Proposals — House of Commons, 2020-11-18
Topic: Transportation
Rachael Helen Maskell (Labour, Centre-left): When I was a shadow Transport Minister, I debated the significant risk of documentation, IT infrastructure and systems not being ready at the end of the transition period. My concerns were dismissed, but here we are in a state of chaos, 43 days before we leave the current arrangements. Further to the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), in light of the fact that the Northern Ireland Department for the Economy has said that 20% of Northern Ireland trade with Great Britain transits via Dublin port, what facilitations are the UK planning to ensure unfettered access for Northern Ireland goods arriving into Holyhead from Dublin port?
Towns Fund — House of Commons, 2020-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
Justin Piers Richard Madders (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you for granting the urgent question, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank the Secretary of State for his response, although many questions remain unanswered. He discussed the Blackpool illuminations, and we certainly need illumination on this side of the House about exactly why particular towns were chosen and not others. Can he tell us what was in his mind when he ignored civil servants’ advice and allocated funding to low-priority towns? Was it really a complete coincidence that all the low-priority towns that he chose happened to be in Tory-held or target seats? We have heard nothing to convince us that it is anything other than a deliberate ploy Serious concerns have been expressed, not just by Opposition Members but by the National Audit Office and the cross-party Public Accounts Committee. We are told that we are making the issue party political, but I remind Government Members that we are not the only ones who question this process. This is party political because the Government made it so in the first place by gerrymandering the fund. Can the Secretary of State give us assurances that the whole rationale for these decisions will be published and that any future rounds of the towns fund will be dealt with solely on merit I want to know whether Ellesmere Port will get a fair crack of the whip next time round. Before the scheme was announced we were told that we were well placed for the next round of funding. If the funds had been allocated on the scores alone there is no doubt that we would have qualified for support, and we would have put that money to good use, because there are ambitious plans for the town, ready to go, that only need Government support to be realised. When is the next opportunity, and will funding be allocated on a transparent and impartial basis? Does the Secretary of State accept that the pandemic has accelerated the challenges that many towns face and urgent action is needed? There can be no levelling up if one structural bias is replaced by another. There can be no levelling up if the playing field is uneven, and there can be no levelling up if large parts of the country are ignored just because they voted the wrong way.
Towns Fund — House of Commons, 2020-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
Steven Mark Ward Reed (Labour, Centre-left): The Secretary of State is accused today of blocking funding from the £3.6 billion towns fund going to the most deprived towns for which it was intended, and instead funnelling it into marginal Conservative party seats ahead of the general election, including to help his own re-election campaign. This clearly is not about levelling up, so let us see whether he will level with the British people about what really went on Did the Secretary of State discuss which towns would receive funding with No. 10 or any Conservative party employee before making the allocations, and will he publish any correspondence? Why did he tell his constituents, "I helped to secure a £25 million town deal which…will…make the town centre a more attractive place to spend time in", despite claiming not to have been involved in any decision about Newark on "The Andrew Marr Show" on 11 October 2020? Was he present when his junior Minister made decisions about his constituency, and will he publish all minutes from that meeting, in which they both chose 61 towns that would benefit from funding What did the Secretary of State mean when he said that the Government would "only" commit £25 million to Stapleford in the constituency of Broxtowe if the Conservative party candidate, Darren Henry, was elected? Newark and Sherwood District Council removed the Secretary of State from its board "following conversations with Government". What were those conversations, and did they take place before or after he saw the damning NAO report Finally, will the Secretary of State clear this up and publish in full the accounting officer’s assessment of the towns fund and the full criteria that he and his Ministers used to select towns when they chose to override civil servants’ advice? If he refuses to publish, the public can only conclude that it is because they have something to hide.
Towns Fund — House of Commons, 2020-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
Nicholas Desmond John Smith (Labour, Centre-left): Contrary to the Secretary of State’s remarks, the Public Accounts Committee says that the criteria for funding the towns fund were insufficient and "vague". So, once again, I ask the Minister to release in full the accounting officer’s assessment of the scheme.
Towns Fund — House of Commons, 2020-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
Kerry Gillian McCarthy (Labour, Centre-left): From this towns fund being handed out to Tory seats, to the money being squandered on covid contracts and the ferry contract being awarded to a company with no ferries, this is all part of a very murky picture, is it not? How can my constituents have any confidence at all that public money is being well spent when cronyism, mates’ rates and political manoeuvring seem to be at the heart of so much Government decision making, not to mention downright incompetence?
Towns Fund — House of Commons, 2020-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
Christian John Patrick Matheson (Labour, Centre-left): When I consider the constituencies of the hon. Members on the Government Benches who have contributed so far—indeed, the constituencies of other hon. Members who are in their places—such as Wolverhampton North East, Ashfield, Warrington South, Workington and Bishop Auckland, and I see the hon. Members for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) and for Shipley (Philip Davies), every single one of those constituencies scored less than Ellesmere Port and Neston in the same borough as the City of Chester, and yet they were awarded the money and Ellesmere Port was not. We know that rankings are important, because the Secretary of State used the ranking of Newark in the east midlands to justify money being awarded to his own constituency. Let me ask him specifically: who took the decision to exclude Ellesmere Port town centre from the money allocation, and what criteria were used?
Towns Fund — House of Commons, 2020-11-18
Topic: International Affairs
Chinyelu Susan Onwurah (Labour, Centre-left): It was really distressing to see such critical funding for our regions mired in political favouritism. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that the shared prosperity fund does not suffer the same fate? Will he confirm that the north-east will receive from the shared prosperity fund at least the £1 billion that it would have got from the European structural funds?
Towns Fund — House of Commons, 2020-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
William Roffen Esterson (Labour, Centre-left): Officials advised the Secretary of State to choose "relatively few" low priority towns. My constituents in Crosby accept that Crosby did not qualify because it was just outside the top 100. What they do not understand is why Southport—456 on the list—qualified and met the criteria that the Secretary of State described earlier. Will he confirm once and for all that the only politicisation on view today is the allocation of the towns fund to Tory key seats such as Southport?
Exiting the European Union (Energy Conservation) — House of Commons, 2020-11-18
Topic: Energy
Alan Patrick Vincent Whitehead (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for giving us a careful and clear exposition of the position that was the case prior to this year and what will now be the case with the effective continuation of the provisions of the two EU directives that he mentioned—the EU ecodesign directive of 2009 and the EU energy-labelling framework regulations of 2017—in terms of their position as continuing defenders of consumer rights in the purchase and use of electrical goods and similar items that are covered by those directives. They deal, in the first instance, as he mentioned, with ensuring a progressive energy efficiency base for electrical products so that the least efficient are progressively withdrawn from sale as the provisions of the ecodesign directive comes in—that is, the requirement that goods are progressively designed in an increasingly energy-efficient and therefore energy-saving way The second directive, as the Minister mentioned, provides a labelling system, which I think hon. Members will be familiar with, that covers the energy efficiency rating of a particular product and therefore gives customers guidance on the products that they are purchasing and reinforces the ecodesign directive in terms of informing customer choices about what they are purchasing. Clearly, it is very important for the purposes of continuing the protections and support for the marketing and purchasing of those electrical items that what was in the directives is properly transposed and changed into UK law. As far as I can see, what has happened with both statutory instruments in this area is that the transposition has been fully made so that the provisions come properly into UK law. Of course, that is not the full story and we need further elucidation on one or two things, whether or not we agree that the SI does its job of making sure that after 1 January—or in this case, March—the provisions are fully transferred and protection can continue. Slightly confusingly, this SI follows on from an SI with exactly the same name in 2019, which first transposed EU eco- design and energy labelling directives into equivalent standards in UK law. That SI transferred those arrangements on the basis that they would come into force in March 2020. However, with the extension of article 50 and the date of exit now being 1 January 2021, the SI might conceivably have needed updating to deal with the new date. Indeed, as it transpired, a number of amendments, changes and developments in those EU directives were made and came into force in the period between the original start date of the 2019 SI and the start date that is envisaged in the new SI we have before us.
Exiting the European Union (Energy Conservation) — House of Commons, 2020-11-18
Topic: Environment
Mathew Richard Allen Rodda (Labour, Centre-left): I wish to take my hon. Friend’s point somewhat further forward. Does he agree that the public and many environmental organisations are deeply concerned, in exactly the way that he is pointing out, about the slippage and the way that the Government, through sleight of hand, are watering down very important EU environmental regulations?
Exiting the European Union (Energy Conservation) — House of Commons, 2020-11-18
Topic: International Affairs
Alan Patrick Vincent Whitehead (Labour, Centre-left): I agree that the public are concerned about that, and we in this House should be concerned about it, because in a number of instances we can see that the period between the lapsing of the EU regulation and its replacement by UK-based provisions has been used, either accidentally or purposefully, to lose some of the protections in transition. Part of our job today is to make sure that what was there for our protection prior to EU exit remains there and continues for future purposes. On this occasion, I think—this SI is 118 pages long, so it is quite a read—
Exiting the European Union (Energy Conservation) — House of Commons, 2020-11-18
Topic: Environment
Alan Patrick Vincent Whitehead (Labour, Centre-left): I thank you for your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker. In my defence, this is a particularly complicated statutory instrument and I have felt it necessary to try to lay it out in some detail to get to the heart of what we are trying to talk about. If I have taken rather longer than I might have done in that process, I am sorry, but I hope that I will be coming to the end of my remarks shortly Will the Minister set out what will be done about the lighting changes that have taken place in directives and how that can be reconciled with procedures in Northern Ireland and Great Britain? There is also no agreement yet, as I understand it, on access by Northern Ireland to the EU product database, which informs eco labelling and product standard activity. The UK is not supposed to have access to the database because it will be independent of the EU and will need to set up its own database in due course—or rather quickly I would have thought. However, if Northern Ireland is to continue to work on EU eco labelling criteria, it should have access to that database. Will the Minister tell us what is happening now about this apparent impasse You will be pleased to know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that we will not oppose this statutory instrument this afternoon, but I do hope that the Minister will be able to enlighten us on some of the points that I have raised. I think that, at the end of this, he might perhaps agree with me that this is rather a mess, isn’t it?
Covid-19 — House of Commons, 2020-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
Karin Marguerite Smyth (Labour, Centre-left): I accept that it was an extraordinary time and that extraordinary measures needed to be taken, but as we have heard from the National Audit Office today, tried and tested processes and procedures were not used. Will the Minister say something about that report and why that was the case, why we had 11 ministerial directions by May and whether those lessons have been learnt by her Department and others that fell foul of the procurement procedures?
Covid-19 — House of Commons, 2020-11-18
Topic: Government Operations
Karin Marguerite Smyth (Labour, Centre-left): I appreciate my hon. Friend having picked up on the point I made. The Minister very carefully read out a statement in reply to my question about the Government’s response to the NAO report. I am concerned that she was saying that the Government stand by what they did in that period, and do not think that the way in which those contracts and large procurement processes were handled was a problem. It may be that the Minister wants to correct the record, but if that is the case, does my hon. Friend agree that that is deeply worrying?
Speaker’s Statement — House of Commons, 2020-09-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Lindsay Harvey Hoyle (Labour, Centre-left): We meet today on the 19th anniversary of 9/11. We remember all those who lost their lives due to terrorism on that day and all those who were injured, as well as those who were bereaved.
Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies (Environmentally Sustainable Investment) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-09-11
Topic: Energy
Anna Rhiannon McMorrin (Labour, Centre-left): The real point I was making is that the regulatory framework and legislation put in place by the Labour Welsh Government have allowed such projects to come to the fore, particularly community energy projects—and in fact onshore wind, which has not been the case in England—but I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments My green share Bill unlocks an exciting market for external investment in co-operatives and mutuals, allowing them to grow, maintaining competitiveness and investing in green sustainable projects.
Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies (Environmentally Sustainable Investment) Bill — House of Commons, 2020-09-11
Topic: Environment
Anna Rhiannon McMorrin (Labour, Centre-left): Environmental sustainability needs to be defined. At the moment, co-operatives have very strong environmental sustainability values at their heart, but that would clearly need to be set out in the confines of this Bill Added to that, environmental and social governance, or ESG, is the buzzword of the City right now. Investors have flooded into the market looking to immunise their portfolios against climate risk and help promote a sustainable recovery from this pandemic. This Bill provides such an opportunity or pathway for investment, and it would be a travesty if this Government were to walk away from that opportunity My Bill is not just warm words on the environment. It would provide a genuine route towards greening our local communities for the benefit of all, creating green jobs, creating green skills, raising capital for the vital retrofitting of housing association stock, and strengthening sustainable and secure sources of good-quality British food and produce from British farms. The list is endless. My Bill is a bid to match co-operative values to the mission of climate action, with communities pooling resources collectively to install and generate energy; taking small steps with huge benefits, such as creating cheap renewable energy, so that no one in the community is left behind by rising energy costs and fuel poverty or priced out of green evolution Co-operatives UK expects there to be 1 million employee and worker owners in the UK co-operatives sector by 2030, but we can go one step further: we can ensure that co-operatives kickstart a local green economy and create local jobs and skills. There are Awel and Egni co-operatives and others across the country, such as Brixton energy and Bristol energy co-operatives and OrganicLea, a co-operative farm that trains local people. Initiatives such as these spark local imagination and creativity and put the power back into the hands of local people. The Bill is about not just the co-operatives of today, but the ones of tomorrow that could be born out of the successes of this Bill—the co-operative bus and rail companies creating genuinely affordable and environmentally sustainable modes of transport as we decarbonise our roads, or seed capital for communities to take over local utilities. In Wales, we have Dwr Cymru, which is a prime example of a semi-mutual water company run on a not-for-profit basis, with profits invested and recycled solely for customer benefit. I am thinking of co-operative run social care, childcare and other communal services, as proposed by the Welsh Co-operative Centre in its "better, fairer, more co-operative Wales" report, or even co-operative agriculture, food production, or community zero-waste cafés and restaurants, such as SHRUB co-op in Edinburgh. Action is needed—not empty words and greenwash—and that is what my Bill aims to deliver.