argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
UK Ambassador to USA: Leaked Emails — House of Commons, 2019-07-08
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement about the leaks from the UK ambassador’s office in Washington.
Hilary James Benn (Labour, Centre-left): It is clear that whoever was responsible for this was not thinking of the national interest. The whole House supports Sir Kim Darroch in doing his job, which is to report home without fear or favour. Does the Minister think that the expression of support for the ambassador’s position from the Prime Minister and others has been slightly undermined by the Foreign Secretary saying that he did not agree with the ambassador’s assessment? It would be helpful to the House if the Minister could explain why that is the case, because it seems to many of us that Sir Kim was only reporting what lots of other people can see for themselves.
UK Ambassador to USA: Leaked Emails — House of Commons, 2019-07-08
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement about the leaks from the UK ambassador’s office in Washington.
Benjamin Peter James Bradshaw (Labour, Centre-left): It is inconceivable that a leak intended to damage our serving ambassador in Washington came from a fellow civil servant, so will the Minister confirm that the telephone and email records of serving and former Ministers and special advisers in the Foreign Office will be part of the investigation? Given the close relationship between the journalist who received this leak and leading pro-Brexit politicians, what does he think was the motivation behind it?
UK Ambassador to USA: Leaked Emails — House of Commons, 2019-07-08
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement about the leaks from the UK ambassador’s office in Washington.
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): The Foreign Office simply cannot function or do its job properly on behalf of all of us unless a confidentiality guarantee is written into the whole fundamental system. In the 1930s, the British ambassador in Berlin regularly reported back in a way that sought to please the Prime Minister here, as well as the Führer in Germany. Is it not absolutely vital that all our ambassadors and high commissioners around the world are certain that their job is to tell the truth, not only about the country in which they are resident, but to Ministers here, whatever those Ministers may think?
UK Ambassador to USA: Leaked Emails — House of Commons, 2019-07-08
Topic: Government Operations
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement about the leaks from the UK ambassador’s office in Washington.
Patrick Bosco McFadden (Labour, Centre-left): As the Minister has said, Sir Kim Darroch was doing his job, and the kinds of things that have been reported have been reflected in many other accounts of the White House, including in published books. What is more interesting is why this was leaked and what the consequences might be. We have already seen this morning a full, broad, nationalist, right-wing attack on the civil service as a result of this. What guarantee can we have that the new regime taking over Government at the end of the month will not indulge in that kind of nationalist, right-wing attack on institutions such as the civil service and the judiciary, which are essential for a representative parliamentary democracy?
UK Ambassador to USA: Leaked Emails — House of Commons, 2019-07-08
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement about the leaks from the UK ambassador’s office in Washington.
Madeleine Moon (Labour, Centre-left): Sir Kim Darroch has always given honest and frank reports, no matter which party he has represented. Whenever delegations go to the US, it is vital that the briefings they receive are honest and impartial, and they always have been. A positive thing happened this morning during my journey to the station: so many people I spoke to who had tuned into Radio 4 turned off the minute Nigel Farage was brought on to comment, because they felt his opinion on Sir Kim was so appalling.
UK Ambassador to USA: Leaked Emails — House of Commons, 2019-07-08
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement about the leaks from the UK ambassador’s office in Washington.
Ian Murray (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister and I share something in common: we both throw things at the radio when Nigel Farage comes on. Why the BBC continues to persist with him as a commentator is completely beyond my comprehension. That leads me to my question. Can the Minister assure the House that this leak was not politically motivated, and did not aim to ensure that senior members of his Government could place a political ambassador in our most important embassy in the world?
UK Ambassador to USA: Leaked Emails — House of Commons, 2019-07-08
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement about the leaks from the UK ambassador’s office in Washington.
Stephen John Doughty (Labour, Centre-left): We need to call this out for what it is: the individual or individuals responsible for this leak have betrayed this country, and those attempting to justify it and to attack our ambassador and our civil servants are guilty of deeply un-British and deeply unpatriotic behaviour. I have been on the receiving end of diptels, and I agree with the Minister about how balanced they are and how crucial they are to good decision making in Government—not least after the Chilcot report and what that taught us about decision making. Will the Minister therefore tell us what steps are being taken to increase the security around the circulation and handling of diplomatic telegrams?
UK Ambassador to USA: Leaked Emails — House of Commons, 2019-07-08
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement about the leaks from the UK ambassador’s office in Washington.
David George Hanson (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister’s tone today is spot-on, and right and proper. Given that the leaks took place over two and a half years, will he examine how many people have had access to all that material? Will he also confirm that the United Kingdom Government, not the American Government, choose the ambassador to the United States?
UK Ambassador to USA: Leaked Emails — House of Commons, 2019-07-08
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement about the leaks from the UK ambassador’s office in Washington.
Ian Colin Lucas (Labour, Centre-left): As my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) pointed out, the journalist behind these stories has close links to the Leave.EU campaign, and specifically to Arron Banks, who is being investigated by the National Crime Agency in relation to overseas donations in elections in this country. Given that backdrop, does the Minister agree that it is essential that we also look at the possible role of hostile powers in this leak?
UK Ambassador to USA: Leaked Emails — House of Commons, 2019-07-08
Topic: Government Operations
Questions: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement about the leaks from the UK ambassador’s office in Washington.
Christian John Patrick Matheson (Labour, Centre-left): In common with other right hon. and hon. Members, I have had meetings with Sir Kim Darroch in the past, and they have been both a pleasure and an honour. We have a convention in this place that we do not name officials, which is why today’s statement is all the more frustrating. Does the Minister share my concern that this is part of a trend? A clique within British politics is undermining the civil service, as was referenced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden). It has attacked Olly Robbins and called for him to be sacked, it has attacked Sir Mark Sedwill, and now it is deliberately seeking to undermine our ambassador to Washington. Is it not about time we put a stop to these people who are undermining how British politics works?
Higher Technical Education Reform — House of Commons, 2019-07-08
Topic: Education
Adrian Edward Bailey (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister acknowledged that take-up of higher technical qualifications is lower in this country compared with our international competitors. I commend him for the statement and its curriculum objectives, but would he acknowledge that the low take-up is not just a result of the curriculum but is about a deep-seated cultural resistance to young people going into technical education? It needs buy-in from parents, teachers and the careers service, and the capacity of further education to deliver. Will he undertake to ensure that those issues are addressed as well?
Higher Technical Education Reform — House of Commons, 2019-07-08
Topic: Education
Diana Ruth Johnson (Labour, Centre-left): Following on from the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey) about how we encourage more people to participate in technical education and obtain the qualifications, what specifically does the Minister think we need to do about the fact that we still do not have enough girls and women taking up technical subjects? We are missing a huge pool of very good people who could make a career in technical subjects.
Higher Technical Education Reform — House of Commons, 2019-07-08
Topic: Education
Catherine Jane Smith (Labour, Centre-left): May I draw the Minister’s attention to the final question asked by the shadow Minister, my fellow Fylde coast MP, which was about the challenges in the FE sector in recruiting and retaining staff? I know from my recent visit to Lancaster & Morecambe College that FE colleges are really struggling to compete with other potential employers, which are not just schools in our area, but higher education institutions. What will the Minister do on that, and how can he address these concerns of the FE sector, in which pay has been held back since 2010?
Higher Technical Education Reform — House of Commons, 2019-07-08
Topic: Education
Nicholas Dakin (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome the Minister’s clarification that there is no desire to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and that high-quality qualifications such as BTECs and HNDs, which have served generations of students well, have nothing to fear from this review; indeed, they may well do well from it. How will the Government ensure that this review builds on the good work that the Augar review did in recognising the need for growing capacity in further education if it is to deliver effectively for the future?
Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-07-08
Topic: International Affairs
Anthony Joseph Lloyd (Labour, Centre-left): I am also bound to remind the Secretary of State that it is 909 days today since Northern Ireland had proper governance. When the Secretary of State brought the original Bill before the House, 652 days had elapsed. I need to remind the House that this is not simply an absence of institutions; there is a vacuum of both politics and decision making that is unprecedented since the signing of the Good Friday agreement. It is unprecedented and very dangerous. It is dangerous for the credibility of the democratic institutions established under the Good Friday agreement The Secretary of State referred quite rightly to the brutal murder of Lyra McKee as one of the triggers that brought the parties back to the talks process, but it should not take the brutal murder of a young woman to impel people—be they the Secretary of State or parties in the Northern Ireland—to do their duty. The absence of power sharing is also directly dangerous. For individuals and communities, the absence of those decision-making processes has meant things not being done, and as a result conditions are deteriorating for people across Northern Ireland The precedent in the past was very clear. The law is very clear. Where talks and elections have been unable to resolve a situation, succeeding Secretaries of State have brought in direct rule. This Secretary of State and her predecessor were not prepared to do that. I say to the Secretary of State, as she is entitled to say herself, that there has been a failure by the five parties—perhaps, more fairly, of the two parties, the DUP and Sinn Féin —to get round the table and make power sharing work over those 909 days, but she cannot absolve herself from her own responsibilities. Until the law was changed last October, there had been 651 days of drift, during which time decisions were not being made and there was simply no ambition to bring through that decision-making process. Serious decisions were not made because the Secretary of State and others shied away from the controversial decision-making process it involved The Secretary of State’s critics would say to her—and I do understand this—that one of the issues is the Prime Minister’s reliance on the votes of the Democratic Unionist party in the Chamber. A brutal and harsh reality is that if one of the parties in Northern Ireland has a very different status from the rest, that tips the balance. Another reality, however, is that this is not good legislation.
Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-07-08
Topic: International Affairs
Anthony Joseph Lloyd (Labour, Centre-left): I am afraid not. Inevitably, it takes different parties to come together to form an agreement. While I understand the political imperative of the finger-pointing that takes place between the DUP and Sinn Féin, the reality is that neither party, in the end, was prepared to reach a position in which matters could be brought to a conclusion—although I should remind the right hon. Gentleman that in the spring of last year Northern Ireland was very close to an agreement, which was then frustrated. We can look back in the history books—and I shall read the right hon. Gentleman’s autobiography with great interest—to see how the blame is allocated, but what is certainly true is that people were very close to a deal at that time. So it does take more than one party to reach an agreement Let me now make a point about the adequacy of the Bill. What it certainly does is protect the Secretary of State from being subject to judicial review for being in breach of the duty to call an election if there is no legislative change or no Stormont Assembly, which was a real threat at one time, but I must disagree with the right hon. Lady’s observation that the Bill is about good governance. It is not about good governance; it is about a very marginal protection for Northern Ireland civil servants so that they can make decisions for the people of Northern Ireland. However, most of the decisions that really matter are not being made by the Northern Ireland civil service, and not simply because of Buick. It was the case long before Buick that they did not have the capacity to make those decisions without political cover. The Bill is not about good governance; it is about a very partial way of keeping things ticking over. One of the odd aspects of this situation is the fact that the backdrop to the absence of a Northern Ireland Executive has been a period in which Brexit has been the biggest issue in United Kingdom politics, not simply in terms of the relationship between the UK and the European Union but, in particular, in terms of the relationship between the United Kingdom and Ireland. During that period of the Brexit conversation, there has been no voice for the Northern Ireland Executive, no voice for the non-Westminster parties in Northern Ireland, and no voice for the people of Northern Ireland, who voted overwhelmingly—let me rephrase that; they voted significantly—in favour of remain. There has been no voice for the business community, no voice for agriculture, and no voice for the many people who have spoken to me, and to the Secretary of State, about the need for a Brexit settlement that will not be damaging and dangerous for the people and the economy of Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-07-08
Topic: International Affairs
Anthony Joseph Lloyd (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman—my hon. Friend—has raised a very interesting point, and it is exactly the point that I was about to make myself. The two candidates for the leadership of the Conservative party—one of whom will, we assume, be the next Prime Minister of this country—are currently vying with each other to be the most no-deal Brexit candidate. That is very dangerous for Northern Ireland, and we know it would be disastrous for the whole of the United Kingdom economy. Those who read the article by Carolyn Fairbairn, the director general of the CBI, this morning will have seen a very well argued case for why the whole United Kingdom would suffer, but because she knows Northern Ireland she also makes the point that a no-deal Brexit would be massively dangerous for Northern Ireland The simple reality is that we know the following from many different sources. As the outgoing Chief Constable of the PSNI warned, the hard border across the island of Ireland which would inevitably follow a no-deal Brexit would become a potential target for the terrorists. A hard border, by making a target for terrorists, would lead certainly to members of the PSNI being put at risk and also potentially people more generally across Northern Ireland. Those are a serious warnings that we ought to take very seriously The Prime Minister said in an answer earlier this year that technical solutions effectively involving moving the border would still mean there is a border. Some involve equipment which could come under attack and some involve a degree of state surveillance that, frankly, I think would not be acceptable to the people of Northern Ireland. We have a very real situation here: a crash-out Brexit is massively threatening to the people of Northern Ireland and Northern Ireland more generally.
Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-07-08
Topic: International Affairs
Anthony Joseph Lloyd (Labour, Centre-left): I do not accept that. In the end, Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. In the absence of governance for Northern Ireland, it is inevitable that there will be consideration here in Westminster of what that means for the people and the institutions of Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-07-08
Topic: International Affairs
Anthony Joseph Lloyd (Labour, Centre-left): I shall come on to exactly that point, but let me continue with this question of a hard border across the island of Ireland and the question of crashing out. The reality is that we know as well that there is not simply a threat around terrorism with that hard border, but there is also a massive threat to the economy of Northern Ireland and the movement of goods including agricultural goods and manufactured goods, which is why the business community and the farmers union in Northern Ireland are both absolutely consistent in their view that that would be massively damaging to the Northern Ireland economy But there is a separate issue that the Good Friday agreement involves, and it is very different in the Northern Ireland context from anywhere else in the United Kingdom: the whole question of identity. Identity matters in the Northern Irish context: identity and respect for people’s different identities is the heart and soul of the Good Friday agreement, and we simply cannot allow that to be damaged by crashing out of the European Union—a crash-out Brexit.
Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-07-08
Topic: International Affairs
Anthony Joseph Lloyd (Labour, Centre-left): That is not a difficult question to answer. The European Union would insist on a border across the island of Ireland. There is no doubt about that. There can be no question of Northern Ireland acting as some kind of back door for smugglers. I am old enough to remember the days when gates were left open on the border and cattle would wander across, by morning and night. Those days have not entirely gone, and we know that smuggling still takes place between Ireland and Northern Ireland, but the European Union would not allow the institutionalisation of any facility that made the smugglers’ lives easier.
Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-07-08
Topic: International Affairs
Anthony Joseph Lloyd (Labour, Centre-left): I am always very generous to the right hon. Gentleman, because his questions are always interesting, if erroneous. The integration of the economies of the UK—particularly Northern Ireland—and the Irish Republic is massively more sophisticated today than it was all those years back. Creating a smugglers charter would be very dangerous. We know—I say this advisedly—that there are already criminal gangs in Northern Ireland who make their money and control other people on the back of the capacity for the illegal transport of goods, services and people. We should treat this with great care I will now try to bring my remarks to a conclusion. I say to the Secretary of State, to the Democratic Unionist party, to Sinn Féin and to the other parties that the cost of no Assembly would be enormous in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Indeed, the cost of no Assembly has already been enormous for individuals in Northern Ireland. In particular, it has been big for the victims of historical institutional abuse, at least 30 of whom have died since Lord Justice Hart produced his report. Some of those victims will be in Westminster on Wednesday, and they deserve resolution of those issues. Those who are already deceased will never see that justice. Because of the dysfunctional education system Northern Ireland, we know that schoolchildren are being denied the quality of education that they need. That cannot be given back to them. But perhaps it is health that we ought to look at most closely In Northern Ireland questions last week, the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds) rightly raised the issue of growing cancer waiting lists. There is a simple equation with cancer: early detection means an increased chance of cure; late detection means an increased chance of death. The lack of reform in health is costing people’s lives. The lack of decision making as a result of no Assembly—because the Government would not move towards an insistence that the Executive should re-form, or towards direct rule—will now be costing lives That is exactly what we are debating here tonight. We will support this piece of legislation because it will be necessary to get us through the summer and to give the new Prime Minister, and possibly a new Northern Ireland Secretary, the chance to resolve the way forward. We can support this until October, but to go beyond October would be very dangerous.
Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-07-08
Topic: International Affairs
Anthony Joseph Lloyd (Labour, Centre-left): I am bound to have sympathy with the hon. Lady’s comments. We know that the Secretary of State took those powers, but we are still waiting for them to be seen, and, as in other areas, we need to see action We will support the Bill tonight, but the Secretary of State told us in October last year that this was a temporary and undesirable measure that would be needed just once, possibly with an extension, and she has to recognise, as we come here again several months on to refill the bucket at the same well, that we are now running out of patience. The Government are running out of credibility and we do not believe that they have a strategy to move Northern Ireland onwards. We have to do better.