argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Counter-Daesh Update — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: International Affairs
Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (Conservative, Centre-right): I will happily take that away. My understanding is that we have excellent co-operation with the IDF, and there are always things we can learn from working with other organisations involved in similar battles. Of course, we do work under the very tight legal constraints rightly imposed by this House in terms of what our agencies are and are not allowed to do and the authorisations necessary. That is something we would not want to change: that is as it should be. However, I will happily take away the challenge of seeing what we can learn from the IDF, which have a formidable reputation.
Counter-Daesh Update — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: International Affairs
Philip Thomas Hollobone (Conservative, Centre-right): As the British Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend is an international statesman. One hundred years ago, his predecessor was drawing the borders of all the countries we are talking about in this discussion this afternoon. In the treaty of Versailles 100 years ago, the Kurdish people were in effect ignored by the western powers. One hundred years on, after their valiant efforts against Daesh, will my right hon. Friend assure the House that we will not abandon the Kurds again and that we will help them to achieve if not independence, at least autonomy in Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran?
Counter-Daesh Update — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: International Affairs
John Simon Bercow (Conservative, Centre-right): Notwithstanding the validity of what the hon. Gentleman has said about the status of the Foreign Secretary as an international statesman, my hunch is that the right hon. Gentleman is altogether a wilier soul and too discerning a dad to try that one on with the kids.
Counter-Daesh Update — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: International Affairs
Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (Conservative, Centre-right): I am slightly perplexed, Mr Speaker, but someone will enlighten me about your pearls of wisdom I think what my hon. Friend says is worthy of serious reflection. The truth is that we have seen what important allies the Kurds have been in this battle against Daesh. Were we to let them down now, it would send a terrible signal about our commitment to our allies for any future conflict in which we might be engaged. With respect to reflecting on what my predecessors did 100 years ago, it tells any Foreign Secretary that they do need to approach the job with a degree of humility.
Counter-Daesh Update — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: International Affairs
Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (Conservative, Centre-right): We do understand that Turkey, too, has a right to territorial integrity, but we are very concerned about what might happen with regard to the issue the hon. Gentleman raises if the US withdrawal is too precipitate, and if it was not clear what outcomes would be unacceptable both to the US and to us. That is why there has been a huge amount of discussion between Turkey, the United States, the United Kingdom and our other allies, precisely to avoid the outcome he is talking about.
Counter-Daesh Update — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: International Affairs
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): It is reassuring to hear what the Secretary of State has said today and to have an indication, for those of us who supported military action against Daesh, of what needed to be done to ensure that these fascists, as they are rightly called, would be defeated and not allowed to fester. Will he reassure me that we will continue a long-term engagement in Iraq and Syria, because defeating Daesh in the long run is also about rebuilding those devastated communities, supporting Christians to return home and ensuring that funds are available, through aid, to redevelop those countries?
Financial Services (Implementation of Legislation) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: International Affairs
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the Minister for giving way. In his letter to colleagues last week, the Economic Secretary stated that the Bill will allow for the Government to choose to implement only those EU files or part of those files which they deem beneficial for the United Kingdom. The Minister talks about whole or parts of legislation. Is he able to set out which of the files or parts of legislation the UK does not intend to implement, and how they will make the decision about what is or is not beneficial to the United Kingdom?
Financial Services (Implementation of Legislation) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: International Affairs
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): I would make two points. First, where we will end up with the various files that are the subject of the Bill will, to some degree, be determined by where we end up shortly after or after any no-deal exit. I would imagine that at that point the EU would also wish to be negotiating with us on those measures. Secondly, the files themselves, under the schedule as opposed to clause 1, are being negotiated at the moment. We therefore do not have clarity on the exact form they will take The second category of files, as I explained, are those that are still in negotiation. These are files that the UK has, in many cases, played a leading role in shaping, and that could bring significant benefits to UK consumers and businesses. The Bill also allows the Government to domesticate these files, in whole or in part, via affirmative statutory instrument. Given that the UK will not be at the negotiating table when the files are finalised, we will be unable to advocate for the interests of the UK’s financial services sector during those negotiations. The Bill therefore provides the Government with the ability to make adjustments to the files that go beyond the deficiency fixing powers for the agreed files. These powers are clearly defined and proportionate.
Financial Services (Implementation of Legislation) Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: Government Operations
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): I am pleased to report that the Bill, as amended in the other place, allows for reporting in respect of the statutory instruments on a six-monthly basis—that commitment is in the Bill—and that there will be four periods in total. The first period of six months will commence from the moment the Bill receives Royal Assent. The report will both look backwards at the powers that have been exercised up until that point and forwards to those powers that may be exercised in the coming period. As to other organisations, such as the Bank of England, there will be a requirement for annual reporting on the basis of the measures undertaken by those regulatory organisations.
Election Law Reform — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: Government Operations
Craig Mackinlay (Conservative, Centre-right): I am pleased to be afforded the Floor of the House for this Adjournment debate on the reform of election law. Many might ask, "What does it matter?" Naysayers might say that this is a debate in defence of ourselves. Well, perhaps, but this is serious. Our election law is a mess, leaving candidates and agents exposed as never before to the real risk of criminal prosecution, so this cannot wait—it needs solving now Election law is important, as it defines the type of democratic institutions that we have. The playing field must be fair and equal, and seen to be so, and the results of elections need to be respected as just and fair. That must be encapsulated in our election law.
Election Law Reform — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: Government Operations
Craig Mackinlay (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my hon. Friend, as he has encapsulated the issue in a few brief sentences. I will be expanding on that in the remainder of the debate. The Supreme Court decision ruled that under section 90C free goods, services or facilities for the "use" or "benefit" of the candidate, arranged either by them or on their behalf, must be included in an election return. In addition, and this goes to the point made by my hon. Friend, authorisation or even, it would seem, full knowledge of the candidate or agent is not required, and only active refusal might—I stress might—be the only possible defence. It is difficult to see how that could be done if the candidate or agent is unaware of the matter concerned or the costs involved The Electoral Commission does not come off unscathed by that Supreme Court judgment. Paragraph 28 of it states that "the Electoral Commission's helpful guidance documents issued over several years, whilst they certainly both address the question of apportionment of expenditure between party and candidate, and deal with the concept of free or discounted services, nowhere appear to alert readers to the possible link between them, nor to the application of the notional expenditure rules to what must sometimes be a difficult exercise of separating local from national expenditure." Let us overlay that statement about the Electoral Commission with some of its own written output on the launch of a consultation on a new draft code of practice on 10 September 2018: "We hope these Codes will make it easier for you to submit your own or your party’s returns, simplifying the process and removing any blurred lines that there might have been" It goes on: "In responding to this consultation you’ll help us to further demystify the process and remove any confusion that you or your party may have over the process of campaign reporting." So, we have an acknowledgement by the Electoral Commission of problems in election law and it was admonished, to a degree, by the Supreme Court The only reference in the draft code published in September last year to the Supreme Court judgment is a single paragraph on page 4 of a 23-page document, which is as yet without statutory force. That single paragraph says: "This notional spending falls to be declared as election expenses in the candidate’s return even if the items provided have not been authorised by the candidate, the candidate’s agent or someone authorised by either or both of them, R v Mackinlay and others (Respondents), UKSC 42, 25 July 2018." That is it: this fundamental change in interpretation encapsulated in a few lines in a draft code of practice, with no guidance as to what it might mean in practice. If the hope was, to use the Electoral Commission’s words, to demystify and remove blurred lines, the Electoral Commission has comprehensively failed.
Election Law Reform — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: Government Operations
Mark James Harper (Conservative, Centre-right): I think my hon. Friend has answered this question, but to pick up the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen), did the Electoral Commission suggest in the draft code of conduct how a candidate was supposed to know, or to be able to account for, that information in any practical way? Or did it leave that open?
Election Law Reform — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: Government Operations
Craig Mackinlay (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend highlights exactly what he might have expected, but I am afraid he will be disappointed, because that is it. There is not one additional word of guidance as to how this change of interpretation might be administered on the proper battleground of elections.
Election Law Reform — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: Government Operations
Craig Mackinlay (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman makes reference to the full understanding of election law dating back to 1868 and in its various guises since. It is only now that the Supreme Court has overturned what we had all accepted as the normal happenings and procedures of election law for all these years. It has confounded many election specialists Let me pick up where I left off. As yet, the draft code has no statutory force. In just 51 days, we will be appointing candidates for local elections and in 80 days the local elections will be taking place throughout the country, possibly in just about every constituency. The Electoral Commission currently proposes to put thousands of local election candidates into battle with no clue as to what they should do to stay properly within the newly interpreted law.
Election Law Reform — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: Government Operations
Jonathan George Caladine Lord (Conservative, Centre-right): I am fortunate to have an excellent agent, Simon Ashall, who is fully trained, but—my hon. Friend has brought this issue out in his excellent and important speech—even he is in a muddle about some aspects of our current electoral law. There were 3,304 candidates at the last general election, and only a few hundred, at most, will have had a professional agent. A really good and experienced agent does not feel that he can be on top of things. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need robust and effective electoral law and regulation, but it also needs to be simplified, fair-handed and clear. I thank him for bringing this debate to the House.
Election Law Reform — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: Government Operations
Craig Mackinlay (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for those robust and powerful words. As he describes, when experienced election agents treat these laws with fear, this is not a position by which any political party will be able to recruit election agents in the future. The barriers should be clear. One should know where the RPA or the PPERA kicks in. But, as my hon. Friend says, how can anybody know what cannot be known? Those are the realms that we are now in Candidates and agents deserve protection. There are elections in 80 days’ time and nominations for candidates close in just 51 days. I ask the Minister to act urgently, with that simple proposed statutory instrument of threeand a half lines, to bring clarity to the law and protection for all candidates and agents.
Election Law Reform — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: Government Operations
Alexander John Gervase Chalk (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay) not only for giving an excellent speech, but for making such an important contribution to this critical field. People watching this from the Public Gallery, or perhaps reading the debate later, may be surprised to learn that these issues are of such seriousness that if candidates or their agents get them wrong, there is a decent possibility that the matter will be resolved with an individual standing up in court, potentially at risk of losing his liberty, his reputation and, indeed, his livelihood. If that is the consequence, it is critical that the legal landscape is clear, and I am afraid that I respectfully agree that it is not clear Let me give the House just one small example of how we find ourselves in a situation where people’s campaigning activity might owe more to their appetite for risk than to the correct campaigning message. In 2017 in Cheltenham, one of the issues was whether I should be putting out a leaflet that mentioned Cheltenham repeatedly throughout. Under one view, if it was simply a national message that would apply to Cheltenham, it could be national expenditure. But under another view, it could be allocated as local expenditure. People watching this should understand that if someone gets that judgment wrong, they could end up being prosecuted for breaking their limit. I thought that there was a risk involved in allocating that as a national spend so I declined to do so, but others took an entirely different view, mentioned Cheltenham a lot and simply allocated the spending as a national spend. It turns out, however, that the Electoral Commission has decided after the event—through these provisional codes of conduct—that circumstances where the constituency is mentioned should be classed as a local expense. Well, if that is right, the implications are absolutely enormous My hon. Friend has already delivered a devastating critique of the Electoral Commission, but one of my criticisms is that it is so slow to act. It knew about this situation in 2015, and yet two years later, when it came to the 2017 election, had it sorted the situation out? No. Had it provided any guidance? No. Candidates like me were simply left to fend for ourselves and make a judgment based on our appetite for risk. I had zero appetite for risk, so I took a cautious approach; others did not, and the net effect was that there was not a level playing field. If the Electoral Commission is not there to ensure a level playing field, what on earth is it there to do?
Election Law Reform — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: Government Operations
Alexander John Gervase Chalk (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman makes a good and fair point, but I would say that the law will inevitably struggle to keep up with every last twist and turn. That is one of the reasons that we need to have an Electoral Commission that is agile and nimble, and can provide assistance to candidates. My first criticism of the Electoral Commission is that it has singularly failed to show that agility and nimbleness. That is not simply an academic criticism; it is echoed in how elections are run, and it means that we do not have a level playing field.
Election Law Reform — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: Government Operations
Mark James Harper (Conservative, Centre-right): I think that the situation is actually slightly worse than my hon. Friend says. When listening to the speech of our hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay), it struck me that the Electoral Commission had been quite nimble and agile in some ways, in the sense that it decided to back a legal action that made the current position more complicated and less straightforward. What it actually should have been doing was being less nimble and sticking to the existing understood provisions in the law, rather than trying to change them. There is enough change in the system, as the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian C. Lucas) says, without muddying up things that everyone in this House thought were very clear.
Election Law Reform — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: Government Operations
Alexander John Gervase Chalk (Conservative, Centre-right): The Electoral Commission needs to do two things. First, it needs to be nimble and agile in responding to developments in campaigning practice. Secondly, it needs to show judgment when matters come before its desk. That judgment means using common sense, but it also means being scrupulously impartial and scrupulously independent. That is not just a statement of the obvious. It is something that is set out in the code of conduct for electoral commissioners, which says: "Commissioners, and the Commission as a body, are accountable to Parliament. Within the Commission, Commissioners are accountable to the Chair. Commissioners are expected to act at all times to further the Commission’s aims and objectives, and uphold its impartiality." Impartiality is key. Section 2 on conflicts of interest goes on to say: "The failure to declare an interest and then act appropriately can affect the validity of a decision. The test in all matters is—would a fair-minded and informed observer conclude that there is a real possibility of bias? The issue is not just whether there is bias, but instead could there be a reasonable suspicion of bias? Decisions must be made in an impartial way without any opinions being formed beforehand" And yet we have an extraordinary situation whereby the director of regulation of the Electoral Commission—the person who comments on the fines imposed on political parties, and who, perhaps more than anyone else, should be impartial and be perceived to be impartial—wrote on Facebook when David Cameron became Prime Minister: "Just can’t understand what people were thinking—do they not remember the Tories before?" She went on to say that she "doesn’t want to live under a Tory government." She also wrote that she could "not believe" that she lives "under a Tory PM again! What is wrong with people? Grrr! Words have failed me." This is the person who is making decisions on whether to proceed with prosecutions or investigations against my hon. Friend. How on earth does that satisfy the test? I remind the House that the test asks "would a fair-minded and informed observer conclude that there is a real possibility of bias? The issue is not just whether there is bias, but instead could there be a reasonable suspicion of bias?" Well, if that test is not crossed in this case, what on earth is the point of the Electoral Commission?
Election Law Reform — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: Government Operations
Chloe Rebecca Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my right hon. Friend. As he says, he has stood at the Dispatch Box in this role, and he, too, will have grappled with the intricacies of the RPA, the PPERA, and more besides. I understand his point, which I would answer by way of an example. Only tonight, I have just come from leading a statutory instrument debate on a further election expenses order. I am a very lucky Minister. I have had the opportunity to be part of three of four election-related debates in only one day. That measure was perhaps a more straightforward example of candidates’ electoral spending limits. We therefore have, at this very moment, some very practical examples before the House of what I would suggest is the right use of that order-making power. That was a different order of thing, I would suggest to my right hon. Friend, than even the way that he characterises this proposed change. We do need to consider whether such a thing should be done by ordermaking or in primary legislation. Whatever the genesis of the problem—whether it came from the Supreme Court or from a different source—it is right that we give it that consideration.
Election Law Reform — House of Commons, 2019-02-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Mark James Harper (Conservative, Centre-right): Can I just check the Government’s position on this? I know what the view of my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet is—that the position was clear before last year and the Supreme Court’s decision in July changed the understanding of the position. Is it the Government’s understanding that before the Supreme Court’s decision, the law was clear, as my hon. Friend set it out, and then the Supreme Court changed everyone’s interpretation of it? In other words, do the Government think that there is something that we need to fix, or do they think that the Supreme Court just set out what everyone thought the law was and therefore we do not need to do anything to fix it?