argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Immigration
Questions: Bath has a great local charity called GlobalARRK, which helps women who are stuck overseas, often facing domestic violence. What is my right hon. Friend doing to help stuck parents who are unable to return to their home country with their children?; Further to comments made last week by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, would he care to suggest what the great British public should watch on television rather than the former Prime Minister and former Member for Sedgefield and his disgraced colleague and guacamole-loving former Member for Hartlepool?; A report published by Physicians for Human Rights, an independent non-governmental organisation, states that recently, during the conflict in Indian-occupied Kashmir, Indian authorities responded to protesters—who were unarmed—by killing 87 of them and injuring 9,000. What representations have our Government made to the Indian authorities about that excessive use of force?; Former Prime Minister Blair has acknowledged that people voted to leave the European Union but not at any price. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that when the price of Brexit becomes clear, people should be asked to confirm that that is a price that they wish to pay?; Many sectors in my constituency rely on foreign workers, from highly skilled workers in pharma to seasonal workers in agriculture, and including 12% of workers at Addenbrooke’s, my local hospital. I know that the Foreign Secretary values the important contribution to the economy made by foreign workers such as EU nationals, but will he also acknowledge that it is important to give them some certainty about their future as soon as possible?
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I fully accept that we need to give all the 3.2 million EU nationals in this country the maximum possible certainty, and that we should do it as fast as we possibly can. Unfortunately, however, I do not think it is reasonable to do it before giving certainty to UK nationals in other EU countries. We would like to get on with that as fast as possible, and it is up to our friends and colleagues abroad to join us.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Other
James Philip Duddridge (Conservative, Centre-right): On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you for taking this point of order. Notwithstanding the underwhelming support for my vote of no confidence in you, have the Government or indeed the Backbench Business Committee contacted you in any way to allocate time for this unresolved matter to be debated and, indeed, voted on?
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): The short answer is no, and there is absolutely no reason why they should have done, a point which I can say from my own head and heart fortified in the knowledge that it is also the sound advice of the experienced Clerk of the House, who has been working in the service of the House for 40 years.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): That is not specifically a matter for the Chair. If the Foreign Secretary wants to respond on the Floor of the House, he is free to do so, but he is under no obligation. I get the impression that the hon. Lady will be contacted.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Other
Andrew James Bridgen (Conservative, Centre-right): On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You quite rightly apologised to the Lord Speaker for unilaterally seeking to ban the President of the United States from speaking in Westminster Hall. When can we expect an apology in this Chamber?
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I treated of that matter very fully both on the day in question, when I responded to the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), and on the following day, when there were points of order. I cannot recall whether the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) was in his place at that time, but I responded to points of order and the matter was addressed fully, so we shall leave it there. I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his interest.
Criminal Finances Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): First, the hon. Gentleman misses the point that courts do not like vexatious complaints. They do not like time-wasting applications with what would be in the case of new clause 1 limited liability for those people who want to use the court’s time to make a statement. Secondly, applications for deportation are often made by the state. The hon. Gentleman would open it up to individuals all over the world to come to our courts, without liability, to make the case for or to make a gesture out of freezing individuals’ assets, without any recourse to the state or even necessarily to evidence. That would open up a whole can of worms for countries around the world I shall give another example. We have sponsored and supported the peace deal in Colombia. Should the Colombian Government at some stage choose to send somebody with a background in the FARC to represent them or to be a cultural attaché in their embassy or something, and somebody in Colombia does not like that, under new clause 1 they could, as an individual, come to a court here and make a tokenistic application. The judiciary might throw it out, but there is capped liability, so the court’s time could be wasted writ large by lots of people making statements and blocking the courts.
Criminal Finances Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Civil Rights
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): We did consider that in consultation with the office of the Attorney General and the Solicitor General, but it was felt that there was not the appropriate need for that, so we progressed with new clause 7 as it is drafted. We should remember that we are putting on the statute book a new power to take action based on gross human rights abuse, torture and degrading treatment. We have not done that before and it is a major step. It is a major signal to countries around the world that if evidence is presented, we could interdict with their assets. That sends the powerful message that London and the United Kingdom are not bases for them to put their assets or ill-gotten gains from such behaviour.
Criminal Finances Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Immigration
Jonathan Simon Djanogly (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend says that visa bans are for another day, but of course visa bans already exist as a possibility. Would it not be helpful to know how the existing visa ban system will complement the new proposal?
Criminal Finances Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Immigration
Dominic Rennie Raab (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We will need a separate legislative vehicle to address the wider question of visa bans, but he makes his point and has been tenacious in powerfully campaigning for this. We will want to move on to that issue at the appropriate time. Today is really about the asset-freezing side of things. We have in this last analysis the opportunity to send a message of solidarity to those who are fighting for the liberty that we in this country hold so dear. We have the opportunity to nurture the flame of freedom on behalf of those brave souls, such as Sergei Magnitsky, who suffered the very worst crimes when standing up for the very highest principles.
Criminal Finances Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Immigration
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): Perhaps I can inform my hon. Friend and the rest of the House on the visa issue. We can refuse a visa to a person who does not meet the immigration rules. Evidence that a person has been involved in organised crime or in human rights abuses or violations would be taken into account when considering a visa application. We can already do that; the power is there with the Government, and we have exercised it in the past.
Criminal Finances Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Immigration
Jonathan Simon Djanogly (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful for the Minister’s clarification. It would be helpful if he could say that it is the Government’s position that, when a prosecution is taken under these new provisions, the court should consider a visa exclusion automatically and not as a possible add-on Clearly, if the sanctioned person had his or her assets confiscated but could then go on to buy more assets or to conduct business in the UK, new clause 7 may lack the required teeth New clause 7(5) refers to proceedings needing to be brought within 20 years, which seems like a short period in any event. Furthermore, it looks to be 20 years from the commission of the gross human rights abuse. Why is it not from the end of the abuse? In other words, if someone has been abused for 20 years plus one day, would the right to prosecute the abuser fail Would the court be required to connect the human rights abuse to the assets being seized? For instance, where the individual is accused of organising the torture of three people but steals from only one of the three and then moves the stolen goods into the UK, would the seizure have to be tied to the one incidence of torture that relates to the stolen goods My final question is this: after the legislation is put in place, do the Government actually intend to act? Many foreign nationals—not least Russians—really want to live here, rather than in, say, the US, so we have significant influence in setting the standards of civilised behaviour we expect from people who live or stay here. I ask the Minister, as I think my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton did, whether we are now going to say to those who have been merciless in their own countries and who then look to store their ill-gotten gains in the UK, "We do not want you here. We do not want your money here", and, importantly, "If you do come here, we will act." If that is the Minister’s position—I think he said it was, but perhaps he could clarify that—I am minded to support Government new clause 7 rather than new clause 1.
Criminal Finances Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): In response to what has been said about the issue, and the sensible suggestions made by the hon. Gentleman, we are considering options for potentially lower thresholds, to be dealt with in the other place. We will of course inform him when there is agreement across the Government.
Criminal Finances Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Mark Christopher Field (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes a strong and powerful case, but does he not recognise the distinction between privacy and secrecy? No one wants an entirely secret element, but most people who indulge in banking, whether in an overseas territory or anywhere else, expect a certain amount of privacy. There is no question but that we would expect law enforcement, the police and the tax authorities to have access to these registers. My hon. Friend has been fair in making the point that ultimately a lot of these issues should be constitutional questions for the territories; these measures should not be imposed on them by the UK. On the notion that anyone should have access to that information beyond the authorities I mentioned, as they would in his Tajikistan example, surely he can understand the reluctance for that to happen, particularly in the globalised financial world in which we live, and particularly if the same does not apply elsewhere.
Criminal Finances Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Civil Rights
Nigel John Mills (Conservative, Centre-right): I accept that we hear the privacy argument a lot—I am sure that it is made in the UK context as well—but we have taken the decision to have transparent registers so that we know who the ultimate beneficial owners of these entities are. If I think through the scenarios in which people would have a right to privacy, I can perhaps see that there might be a good reason not to publish if there is a real issue of individual safety, but I struggle to find many other situations for which there is a good argument for people being able to establish entities or other bodies in the overseas territories without being clear about who the ultimate owner is. If someone owns a company here or is a shareholder, that has to be public. That transparency exists for any kind of entity here, so I am not sure why a different argument ought to apply for our dependencies. In weighing the right to privacy against the right to ensure that we are not letting dirty, corrupt, criminal money into the system, we have to err on the latter side of the equation.
Criminal Finances Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Mark Christopher Field (Conservative, Centre-right): It is fair enough that I be allowed to defend myself. I was making the point that while I favoured full transparency towards law enforcement agencies and the tax authorities, I did not support there being a full, open and public register at this stage, because I supported the idea of banking privacy.
Criminal Finances Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Other
Eleanor Fulton Laing (Conservative, Centre-right): Order. The hon. Lady is not going to read out all 46, is she? She has made her point most eloquently, so there is no need to list all 46. We do not read long lists in this Chamber, and the House has got the point she is making.
Criminal Finances Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): The first commitment is for the central register to be in place by June this year. Where overseas territories have trouble fulfilling that—for example, they just do not have the capacity to do it—we have offered help to allow them to do so. Hopefully that means that we will keep on target. As for setting a date for the public register, we first have to complete our own, and get it up and running. Once we know what challenges are involved in doing that and seeing how it works, we can have a grown-up discussion with our G20 partners about when they will do that. We should not just focus on the overseas territories and Crown dependencies. Major economies, including our own, are guilty of allowing people to hide illicit funds, which is why we introduced this Bill. I suspect we will find many funds laundered not in those small overseas territories, but in some major economies in the G20. That is important.
Criminal Finances Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Civil Rights
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): We do have to recognise that there is a difference between secrecy and privacy; we have to respect that and to understand when privacy is an advantage and when it is being used secretly, to create a disadvantage or to avoid detection. So the difference between secrecy and privacy is not as straightforward as it would seem. In our lives, we all deserve some element of privacy. Shareholdings in some very major private companies, for example, are not listed—they have to be declared—and that has been established for many years.
Criminal Finances Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): The United Kingdom Government do not think they are at a competitive disadvantage, and that is why we are progressing with a public register ourselves. However, we will lead by example and by peer-group pressure; we will not lead by imposition. That is fundamentally the difference between the Government and some Members of the House. That is how we are going to get there.
Criminal Finances Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): Well, apart from asking the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath how he has enjoyed his hour on the Committee, which he has gone off to attend, I think we should look at this in chronological order. The review is taking place now. Whatever it produces will, of course, be responded to. If it is responded to in legislation, that will succeed whatever is being discussed in that Committee now I come now to the issue of tax evasion and the Opposition’s new clause 11, which returns us to the question of corporate transparency in overseas territories. I should stress that the new offences in part 3 of the Bill already apply in those jurisdictions. First, the domestic tax evasion offence applies to any entity based anywhere in the world that fails to prevent a person acting for it, or on its behalf, from criminally facilitating the evasion of UK taxes. The overseas offence applies to any entity that carries out at least part of their business in the United Kingdom. The only circumstances in which a company is outside the scope of these offences is where there is no connection to the UK: no UK tax loss, no criminal facilitation from within the UK, and no corporation carrying out any business. In those situations, it is for the country suffering the tax loss, and not for the UK, to respond. The corporate offences are by no means a one-size-fits-all solution for every country. However, I am pleased to report that Government officials have spoken to revenue authorities, regulators and businesses from across the world about the new corporate offences, and there has been significant interest in them.
Criminal Finances Bill — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order and for giving me a moment’s notice of it. She is clearly concerned and aggrieved. My initial response is to say to her that this is not a point of order for the Chair, or, for that matter, a subject for the House authorities. I understand her concern, not least in terms of personal inconvenience, and I trust that her point of order has been heard on the Treasury Bench. It is very much a matter for Ministers, with whom it has not been registered, but I repeat that it is not a matter for the Chair Third Reading
Closure of bank in Odiham — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Ranil Malcolm Jayawardena (Conservative, Centre-right): Banks are more than a utility; they provide a service to communities up and down the land. Today banks are changing definitions and moving the goalposts so that they can close more branches, including in my constituency. This is being done by all banks, at a time when they are seeking to rebuild trust. The people of Odiham want to make it clear to this House—they have done so well into their four figures—that they want their local bank to remain The petition reads: The Humble Petition of the people of North East Hampshire, Sheweth, That Lloyds Bank have proposals to close the Odiham High Street branch on 8th March 2017; that this high street branch is particularly highly valued; especially by older residents and small business owners who often pop in to manage their finances; and that if accounts are moved to Fleet, this becomes a four hour return journey by public transport, which is clearly not in the best interests of our community Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House urges HM Government to take all possible steps to urge Lloyds Bank to reconsider this decision and to make sure that the banking industry considers the social implications of their actions And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c [P002016]
SS Mendi — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Public Lands
Andrew John Turner (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for commemorating the centenary of the sinking of SS Mendi. He will be aware that the SS Mendi was positively identified by one of my constituents, Mr Martin Woodward. Mr Woodward has a museum in Arreton, where the bridge telegraph from SS Mendi is exhibited—it is a very great memorial.
SS Mendi — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Public Lands
Andrew William Murrison (Conservative, Centre-right): Indeed. We have to be very grateful to Mr Woodward. He was, I believe, a self-taught diver who dived in an old hard hat rig. In those days—the 1960s—diving off the Isle of Wight was quite something. It would have been difficult work. I am yet to visit his museum in Arreton, but I will certainly make it my business to do so when I am next on the island In 2009, the Mendi was designated as a war grave by the Ministry of Defence. In 2012, English Heritage commissioned the excellent Wessex Archaeology, which is based near my constituency, to research the wreck and produce a report.
SS Mendi — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Andrew William Murrison (Conservative, Centre-right): We must commemorate it, too, in the UK, because there is a danger that some communities in modern Britain may get the impression that they have little equity in what we as a nation are commemorating during this four-year centenary, and that it has nothing to do with them On Friday, in the presence of the South African high commissioner, I had the great privilege of launching an engagement project funded by the Department for Communities and Local Government, called "The Unremembered: World War One’s Army of Workers". Created by the Big Ideas Community Interest Company, it ensures that communities across the UK will remember the 616 brave men of the South African Native Labour Corps and 30 crew members who lost their lives on 21 February 1917. Over the coming months the project will explore men from across the globe, as well as from the UK, who went to theatres of war not to fight, but to dig trenches and latrines, build hospitals and roads and carry food, water and the wounded. Unremembered will encourage and support communities to explore the role of labour corps during the great war and after it in the great clean-up operation that set about restoring normality to the battlefield and reburying the dead under the supervision of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
SS Mendi — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Public Lands
Graham Evans (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is making very powerful points, for which I pay tribute to him. Is he aware of the Hollybrook memorial in Southampton, which is dedicated to those who died on the SS Mendi? It might be a good idea for the Royal British Legion and local schools to remember this date in future years, so that those who died on that day 100 years ago will never be forgotten.
SS Mendi — House of Commons, 2017-02-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Andrew William Murrison (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Yesterday, a commemoration was held in Southampton to mark the loss of people on the Mendi. A service is held every year, with this year being particularly special, given the fact that it is the 100th anniversary Unremembered will reach out to Britain’s diverse communities, bringing to mind the world as well as the war, and reminding everyone that the events of 100 years ago are very much to do with them today. The Basotho, Pondo, Swazi, Xhosa and Zulu volunteers of 1917, some of them high born and educated, most far more modest men, believed that what they were going to 6,000 miles from home had everything to do with them. That was despite the political ambivalence at home of many in the already fractious Union of South Africa, despite the complex motives of some in relation to the nascent struggle for political and constitutional change and despite the second-class status labourers were given by those they came here to help. Denied the respect and recognition due to them in their time, we must honour them today.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-09-07
Topic: Other
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): Order. I am sorry, but there is huge pressure of time today, and we do not have time for descriptions. What we need is short, pithy questions, preferably not heckled extensively, so that we can get down the Order Paper.