argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-06-13
Topic: Civil Rights
Emma Ann Hardy (Labour, Centre-left): I say to the right hon. Member that, as Bill Committees go, it was a very enjoyable one. I thank him for being one of the few Conservative Members who listens to the contributions. On the point he is making, it is not about disagreeing with this idea of shocking people or of having different opinions; the fundamental problem, as I have said repeatedly, is how this piece of legislation interacts with existing legislation already in place. How does this interact with equality legislation? How does this interact with other existing pieces of legislation? My concern is further developed when I see the person who is making the decision on how these different pieces of legislation interact with each other. It is, as has been mentioned—and this is the reason for new clause 4—somebody appointed by the Prime Minister of the day, which then leads to all those issues around impartiality of process. We have a situation here where we have a piece of legislation that almost buts up against existing equality legislation, but it is not quite clear how their processes will rub together, yet there is no specification that the person making the decisions has to have legal experience or knowledge; they are instead a political appointment. That is where we have the difficulty—it is not with freedom of speech, but with the legislation itself.
Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-06-13
Topic: Civil Rights
Emma Ann Hardy (Labour, Centre-left): I think it might also be worth the Government having a look at the recent legislation that they have already passed on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the issues around protest and free speech. We could end up with a situation where free speech is the preserve of students who attend university, but those outside university will have their free speech limited unless they are very, very quiet and do not protest too loudly. We could end up with more conflict, with one part of the Government saying one thing in terms of restricting protest, and another part of the Government saying something else about supporting free speech. It is fair to say that having this Bill along with existing and proposed legislation will create a muddle.
Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-06-13
Topic: Civil Rights
Emma Ann Hardy (Labour, Centre-left): Even if the right hon. Gentleman is offended, he is never offensive, so I always enjoy debating with him. On the issue of the need to challenge and to shock, there is always a line to be drawn somewhere. In Committee we talked about the offensiveness of holocaust denial. Okay, there is not a physical threat from holocaust denial, but I think that we would all agree that it is very offensive and it is therefore very hurtful. A line will always have to be drawn when it comes to free speech, but we have the difficulty, which I keep going back to, of who makes the decision on where that line is drawn—what experience do they have, what criteria is set, what is their knowledge, and what is their understanding of the subject. Having the right person at the top is important. I am sure that the right hon. Member will accept that, yes, someone might want to offend, to shock or to stimulate discussion, but there is always a point at which we say, "No, that is not intellectual stimulation. That is just offensive and rude and not part of an intellectual debate at university."
Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill — House of Commons, 2022-06-13
Topic: Civil Rights
John Martin McDonnell (Labour, Centre-left): On the point about advice, we are dealing with what has obviously become a contentious issue that often relies on subjective judgments. The advice that universities will take will come from the director for freedom of speech and academic freedom. Does it not behove the House to ensure that that person has the absolute confidence of those universities? New clause 4 simply says that that person will not be associated with a political party and will be appointed by an independent panel, and that a Select Committee will have a role in confirming that appointment. That will hopefully take the director who provides such sensitive advice out of the political melee and give universities more confidence in them.
Falklands War: 40th Anniversary — House of Commons, 2022-06-13
Topic: Mixed Topics
Daniel Owen Jarvis (Labour, Centre-left): On 1 April 1982, the Argentine junta launched a full-scale invasion of a then little-known archipelago 8,000 miles from Britain in the south Atlantic ocean. The following day, their forces were in control of the entire islands and so began the Falklands war The Argentine dictatorship believed that Britain would be unwilling to liberate the islands, and the US navy believed any effort to do so would be a "military impossibility." Despite the received wisdom, the UK assembled a taskforce at breakneck speed—the first since the second world war to use all elements of our armed forces. What followed were 74 days of extreme hardship, intense violence and unspeakable bravery. It is right we remember that collective sacrifice, 40 years on Thirty thousand sailors, royal marines, soldiers, airmen and merchant mariners took the long voyage south. Tragically, 255 of them did not make the return journey home. Many thousands more still live with the mental and physical effects of that bloody struggle. No matter what we think of the decisions that sent our people into conflict down the ages, whether to Gallipoli, Goose Green or Gereshk, we have a duty to support the men and women who step forward to serve in our armed forces and a duty to bear witness to their sacrifice.
Cost of Living: Pensioners — House of Commons, 2022-03-21
Topic: Other
Lindsay Harvey Hoyle (Labour, Centre-left): Order. I do not think it is becoming of anybody to condemn a Member of Parliament who has not been here for a long, long time. I do not really want to get into that, so we should think about what we say in future.
Cost of Living: Pensioners — House of Commons, 2022-03-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour, Centre-left): We know that the Government have already abandoned their promises on keeping the pensions triple lock and free TV licences for the over-75s. Now, before the soaring inflation and the soaring energy bills have even kicked in, thanks to the Government’s policies, almost a fifth of all pensioners in the UK are living in poverty. One million households are missing out on pension credits and thousands of pensioners, including in my Slough constituency, are bothered by delays, underpayments and other issues. When will the Government finally get a grip and resolve these problems?
Barriers to Work: Supported Housing and Exempt Accommodation — House of Commons, 2022-03-21
Topic: Housing
Questions: What assessment she has made of the barriers to work for tenants who are in (a) supported housing and (b) receipt of housing benefit at exempt accommodation rates.
Kerry Gillian McCarthy (Labour, Centre-left): I welcomed the announcement made by the Minister for Housing, the right hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), towards the end of last week about regulation of supported housing—that is a very good move—but at present there are people in supported housing where there is an exemption from the housing benefit limit, so they could be paying hundreds of pounds a week in rent. My local DWP branch tells me that that is a real deterrent for them to come off housing benefit or universal credit and get into work. What is the Minister doing to address the problem?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2022-03-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): Families and retirees are facing rising energy bills so unaffordable, tax rises so punishing, real-terms cuts in the basic state pension so deep, and cuts in universal credit and disability benefits so severe that money-saving expert Martin Lewis has said that people will either starve or freeze. Secretary of State, Mr Lewis is correct, is he not?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2022-03-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Questions: The jobs of the future, especially in the green industries, require technical skills, and investing in people to improve their technical skills is vital to the Government’s levelling-up agenda, which is particularly important in beautiful Hastings and Rye. What steps is my hon. Friend taking to increase the technical skills levels of people who are already in work?; It is welcome that the Government have proposed reforms to the Child Maintenance Service following the recent National Audit Office report highlighting the failures in that organisation. Will the reforms address the issues with self-employed fee-paying parents hiding their income, as well as the concerns around previously unco-operative parents being moved off collect and pay after minimal evidence of compliance?; I would like to thank our local DWP officials and work coaches for their efforts to help more people in Delyn into work in the past few months. Some parts of my constituency remain among the most deprived in Wales. Does the Minister agree that improved transport infrastructure is key to ensuring that people can get to jobs? I appreciate that she is not a Minister in the Department for Transport, but will she in principle support my campaign to have a train station reinstated to serve Holywell and Greenfield, to help people to access more jobs and level up their communities?; Pensions and benefits have been uprated by 3.1%, whereas inflation is set to be 6.2%, or 8% if The Daily Telegraph has got it right. That means that pensioners and benefits recipients will not be able to pay for the most basic essentials. How can the Minister look people in the eye when the Government have inflicted yet another real-terms cut?; Ministers will be aware that a number of organisations, such as those in in care services, agriculture and related industries, and hospitality, are experiencing difficulties in finding enough workers. What can Ministers do to bring those who are looking for work together with those kinds of industries?
Catherine Jane Smith (Labour, Centre-left): While the Secretary of State was enjoying our warm Lancashire hospitality in Blackpool this weekend, just a few miles up the coast in Fleetwood, my constituent Patricia was emailing me as her MP. She is a disabled pensioner and says: "The state pension does not keep up with rises in cost of living or inflation…Fuel costs are crippling, as I don’t move and feel the cold but we have to be careful with the heating. I need carers but their costs rise faster than the annual increase." What does the Secretary of State have to say to my constituent?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2022-03-21
Topic: Other
Questions: The jobs of the future, especially in the green industries, require technical skills, and investing in people to improve their technical skills is vital to the Government’s levelling-up agenda, which is particularly important in beautiful Hastings and Rye. What steps is my hon. Friend taking to increase the technical skills levels of people who are already in work?; It is welcome that the Government have proposed reforms to the Child Maintenance Service following the recent National Audit Office report highlighting the failures in that organisation. Will the reforms address the issues with self-employed fee-paying parents hiding their income, as well as the concerns around previously unco-operative parents being moved off collect and pay after minimal evidence of compliance?; I would like to thank our local DWP officials and work coaches for their efforts to help more people in Delyn into work in the past few months. Some parts of my constituency remain among the most deprived in Wales. Does the Minister agree that improved transport infrastructure is key to ensuring that people can get to jobs? I appreciate that she is not a Minister in the Department for Transport, but will she in principle support my campaign to have a train station reinstated to serve Holywell and Greenfield, to help people to access more jobs and level up their communities?; Pensions and benefits have been uprated by 3.1%, whereas inflation is set to be 6.2%, or 8% if The Daily Telegraph has got it right. That means that pensioners and benefits recipients will not be able to pay for the most basic essentials. How can the Minister look people in the eye when the Government have inflicted yet another real-terms cut?; Ministers will be aware that a number of organisations, such as those in in care services, agriculture and related industries, and hospitality, are experiencing difficulties in finding enough workers. What can Ministers do to bring those who are looking for work together with those kinds of industries?
Lindsay Harvey Hoyle (Labour, Centre-left): Before we come to the urgent question, I remind Members that they should be careful not to identify the child at the centre of this case. That includes being cautious about mentioning information that might help others to establish their identity. I call Bell Ribeiro-Addy.
Metropolitan Police: Strip-search of Schoolgirl — House of Commons, 2022-03-21
Topic: Civil Rights
Bellavia Janet Ribeiro-Addy (Labour, Centre-left): They walked into her place of safety at the request of people who were meant to keep her safe, stripped her naked while she was on her period and forced her to remove her sanitary towel, spread her legs, part her buttock cheeks and cough, to look for drugs they never found. We should remember that this comes on top of a string of incidents, from the abuse and strip-search of Dr Duff, the rapist and murderer Wayne Couzens, the vile racism and misogyny uncovered in Charing Cross police station, the brutal handling of the vigil in Clapham Common, and the record low confidence in policing, particularly by minority communities, who are evidenced as being over-policed as citizens and under-policed as victims Does the Minister understand that there is no apology that could atone for the perverse racist degradation of this child? Does the Minister accept that this is not an isolated incident—that between 2016 and 2021 the Met carried out over 9,000 strip-searches on children, some younger than 12, and that over 33% of all strip-searches were carried out on black people, despite only 13% of Londoners being black? Given that this happened in a school, what discussions has his Department had with the Department for Education on this serious breach of safeguarding and the questionable presence of police officers in our schools? Will he finally accept that the Met police have an issue with institutional racism and misogyny and take steps to ensure that any new commissioner is committed to rooting it out The Minister may be aware that during the statement on the commission on race and ethnic disparities last week, the Minister for Equalities said: "We have systems in place to ensure that when things go wrong we can right them. What we cannot do is stop any bad thing happening to anyone in the country at any time."—[Official Report, 17 March 2022; Vol. 710, c. 1075.] I have to ask: what on earth are this Government here for? I simply do not accept that. Finally, in the words of Child Q herself: "I need to know that the people who have done this to me can’t do it to anyone else ever again" Can the Minister assure Child Q and our constituents of that?
Metropolitan Police: Strip-search of Schoolgirl — House of Commons, 2022-03-21
Topic: Civil Rights
Janet Jessica Daby (Labour, Centre-left): Last week I raised the issue of Child Q with the Minister for Equalities, the hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch). I told her of my disgust that a child experienced being stripped of her clothes and searched at school by police officers while she was menstruating. It is beyond belief that she was pulled out of an exam and then expected to be fit and well enough to return to that exam. I am outraged by that, as are other hon. Members of this House. I am pleased that the Minister has said he is disgusted and appalled, but does he agree that the officers and teachers involved should be sacked and charged for their misconduct and that, as a matter of safeguarding, they should never be allowed to work with children again?
Metropolitan Police: Strip-search of Schoolgirl — House of Commons, 2022-03-21
Topic: Civil Rights
Marsha Chantol De Cordova (Labour, Centre-left): I start by saying that it is incredibly disappointing that the Home Secretary could not be here to respond to this urgent question on an urgent matter The police tell us that if we have nothing to hide, we have nothing to fear, but everybody should fear the degrading and traumatising treatment that Child Q suffered when she was strip-searched by the Metropolitan police. More than four children a day are subject to that treatment by the Met, and black people are strip-searched at six times the rate of white people. How does the Minister expect to build trust and confidence in a force that is rife with institutional racism and misogyny when it victimises black children on a daily basis? If his Government’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities does not admit the existence of institutional and structural racism, how on earth can we put any trust in the Government?
Metropolitan Police: Strip-search of Schoolgirl — House of Commons, 2022-03-21
Topic: Civil Rights
Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour, Centre-left): We have all been horrified by this case. We need assurances that it cannot happen again and we need urgent action from the Minister to address the issue. He says that he is waiting for the IOPC. As he knows, the national safeguarding panel is a ministerially appointed body. Will he stop ducking his responsibilities and urgently publish the data on how many children have been strip-searched over the years, breaking it down by gender, race, age and location of the search, including whether it happened at school? The safeguarding review also demonstrated that there were elements of racism involved, so can he urgently look into that issue, because it needs to be taken seriously?
Metropolitan Police: Strip-search of Schoolgirl — House of Commons, 2022-03-21
Topic: Civil Rights
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): It is more than two decades since the Macpherson inquiry found institutional racism in the Metropolitan police. We now look at the figures on stop and search and we hear the awful story of this young girl and the way she was treated. Does the Minister accept that something has to happen now to give any confidence to the black community in London that its sons and daughters will not be treated in that way on the streets, and that the police will not behave with a racist attitude towards them and will not point to a young black person and see a potential criminal rather than a young person walking around the streets of our city? The confidence is not there, and that is made worse by the report, by the delay in an apology for this poor young woman and by the abominable way that she was treated.
Metropolitan Police: Strip-search of Schoolgirl — House of Commons, 2022-03-21
Topic: Civil Rights
Florence Eshalomi (Labour, Centre-left): Mr Speaker: "I can’t go a single day without wanting to scream, shout…or just give up." That is child Q, and I say to child Q and every other little black girl, "You matter." In eight years’ time, when my daughter is 15 years old, I hope this issue is not still happening, but I am worried that it will be. The local safeguarding practice review found that child Q’s mother was not contacted, and she only found out when her child took a taxi home. Once at home, child Q’s mother had to take her to the GP who made a referral for psychological help due to her child’s level of distress. The Minister has outlined that he is waiting for the IOPC report, but does he agree with me that there are clear safeguarding issues in the treatment of child Q and the lack of parental engagement, and that he can take steps today to help address this and give confidence to little girls not just across London, but up and down the country?
Metropolitan Police: Strip-search of Schoolgirl — House of Commons, 2022-03-21
Topic: Civil Rights
Barry Strachan Gardiner (Labour, Centre-left): The bad apple defence or the isolated incident excuse will no longer wash. Our constituents are no longer able to trust the police, including constituents such as Teresa Akpeki, whose brother was the victim of a hit-and-run accident. The police, when they attended the body—this was an NHS worker collecting samples—did not reach into his pocket to find his ID card, but phoned the Home Office to find out whether he was an illegal immigrant, because he was black. The Minister now needs to launch an inquiry into the way in which the Metropolitan police is dealing with ethnic communities, and if he fails to do that, the confidence of our communities in the police up and down this country is going to be rock bottom.
Metropolitan Police: Strip-search of Schoolgirl — House of Commons, 2022-03-21
Topic: Civil Rights
Matthew Thomas Pennycook (Labour, Centre-left): This is a deeply disturbing case both in terms of what happened and the fact that racism was clearly a factor, but may I ask the Minister how it came to light? According to the independent safeguarding report, Hackney Council only became aware of the incident when the family approached a GP; given that this happened two years ago, why is it not automatically the case that when a child is strip-searched social services are notified and a safeguarding review is triggered?
Metropolitan Police: Strip-search of Schoolgirl — House of Commons, 2022-03-21
Topic: Civil Rights
Chinyelu Susan Onwurah (Labour, Centre-left): This appalling act of institutionalised degradation was committed against a black child and the report highlights the racism inherent in the adultification of black children. Does the Minister understand that seeing black children as adults is, just like seeing black men as more likely to be criminal or seeing black women as more likely to be troublesome, part of institutionalised, systemic anti-black racism and his inability to say what he is going to do about it says that he is prepared to continue to tolerate it. Does he also understand that we can never have trust in our policing services with a Minister who is unable to say anything?
Metropolitan Police: Strip-search of Schoolgirl — House of Commons, 2022-03-21
Topic: Civil Rights
Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour, Centre-left): The shocking, scandalous strip-search of child Q is so demeaning; how could those Met police officers and the school have thought that such a horrible action could be even remotely acceptable? This could have happened to any one of our children—or could it? I ask that because the statistics tell a very different story, and indeed the safeguarding review revealed that racism could well have been an influencing factor in the decisions taken. Given that, what is the Minister doing to urgently take action on this?
Metropolitan Police: Strip-search of Schoolgirl — House of Commons, 2022-03-21
Topic: Civil Rights
Zarah Sultana (Labour, Centre-left): In the past three years Metropolitan police officers have been jailed for posing for selfies next to the bodies of black murdered sisters, a serving officer has been found guilty of Sarah Everard’s horrific murder, racist, sexist and homophobic messages between officers have been dismissed as "banter" internally only to have been described as "shocking" by the independent watchdog, and now we learn that Met officers strip-searched a 15-year-old black child at her school, inflicting trauma that will last for years to come. This is obviously not about blaming every single officer, but will the Minister accept that this is not just a few bad apples but reveals a deeper problem of institutional racism and misogyny at the Me? Will the Minister finally answer, rather than just leave, a question that has been asked three times: when did he find out about the case of child Q?