argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2019-06-17
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: Noting that the right to buy has been abolished in Scotland, what efforts is my hon. Friend making to re-energise home ownership throughout the United Kingdom, particularly for first-time buyers?; New research by housing association Habinteg reveals that outside London fewer than a quarter of new homes being built would be suitable for older and disabled people, and only 1% are accessible for wheelchair users. What will the Government do now to raise standards so that all new homes are accessible and adaptable for older and disabled people?; Residents in my constituency village of Burwash have raised concerns about the transparency of the planning appeal process—namely, that the developer seems to have access to information that perhaps residents do not. Does our excellent Housing Minister have any plans to reform the planning appeal process so that my constituents have more comfort and can be more involved in the process?; Since doing a constituency survey on leaseholds, I have been continually shocked by case after case of unfair charges and rises, such as sinking fund costs going from zero to £250 without any warning. I therefore welcome the Competition and Markets Authority’s investigation into leaseholds, but what assurances can the Minister give to current leaseholders who face increasing costs? Will he put a moratorium on new leaseholds while the CMA does its work, to ensure that there are fewer victims?; Council tax arrears are a growing problem. In 2018, an estimated 2.2 million households were in arrears, and in 2016-17, people paid an estimated £129 million in bailiff fees and court costs on top of the arrears. As part of the review into council tax collection, will the Minister commit to reviewing the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992, to encourage councils to stop using liability orders and bailiffs?; Will the Secretary of State update the House on what he and his Department are doing to ensure that every council is meeting its commitment to and obligations under the armed forces covenant?; Given that waiting for the social care Green Paper makes Godot seem prompt, will the Minister agree to meet representatives of the Opposition parties, as well as leaders of the all-party Local Government Association, to use the LGA’s excellent Green Paper as a starting point for fixing our broken social care system?
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes a really powerful and important point on the issue of the Union, which I believe in hugely and passionately, and how we strengthen it and act on that. Through the UK shared prosperity fund, but also through the stronger towns fund, we do have the opportunity to ensure that all parts of our proud Union are playing their role in this country’s prosperity and future, and that is something I and my Department are proud to challenge.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2019-06-17
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: Noting that the right to buy has been abolished in Scotland, what efforts is my hon. Friend making to re-energise home ownership throughout the United Kingdom, particularly for first-time buyers?; New research by housing association Habinteg reveals that outside London fewer than a quarter of new homes being built would be suitable for older and disabled people, and only 1% are accessible for wheelchair users. What will the Government do now to raise standards so that all new homes are accessible and adaptable for older and disabled people?; Residents in my constituency village of Burwash have raised concerns about the transparency of the planning appeal process—namely, that the developer seems to have access to information that perhaps residents do not. Does our excellent Housing Minister have any plans to reform the planning appeal process so that my constituents have more comfort and can be more involved in the process?; Since doing a constituency survey on leaseholds, I have been continually shocked by case after case of unfair charges and rises, such as sinking fund costs going from zero to £250 without any warning. I therefore welcome the Competition and Markets Authority’s investigation into leaseholds, but what assurances can the Minister give to current leaseholders who face increasing costs? Will he put a moratorium on new leaseholds while the CMA does its work, to ensure that there are fewer victims?; Council tax arrears are a growing problem. In 2018, an estimated 2.2 million households were in arrears, and in 2016-17, people paid an estimated £129 million in bailiff fees and court costs on top of the arrears. As part of the review into council tax collection, will the Minister commit to reviewing the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992, to encourage councils to stop using liability orders and bailiffs?; Will the Secretary of State update the House on what he and his Department are doing to ensure that every council is meeting its commitment to and obligations under the armed forces covenant?; Given that waiting for the social care Green Paper makes Godot seem prompt, will the Minister agree to meet representatives of the Opposition parties, as well as leaders of the all-party Local Government Association, to use the LGA’s excellent Green Paper as a starting point for fixing our broken social care system?
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): Through the last local government financial settlement, we increased the funding available to local councils for dealing with some of the issues of social care. If the hon. Gentleman is asking me to champion the needs of local government and to recognise the quality services it delivers, with the amazing work delivered by our councils up and down the country, I can assure him that I will absolutely be doing that.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2019-06-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Questions: Noting that the right to buy has been abolished in Scotland, what efforts is my hon. Friend making to re-energise home ownership throughout the United Kingdom, particularly for first-time buyers?; New research by housing association Habinteg reveals that outside London fewer than a quarter of new homes being built would be suitable for older and disabled people, and only 1% are accessible for wheelchair users. What will the Government do now to raise standards so that all new homes are accessible and adaptable for older and disabled people?; Residents in my constituency village of Burwash have raised concerns about the transparency of the planning appeal process—namely, that the developer seems to have access to information that perhaps residents do not. Does our excellent Housing Minister have any plans to reform the planning appeal process so that my constituents have more comfort and can be more involved in the process?; Since doing a constituency survey on leaseholds, I have been continually shocked by case after case of unfair charges and rises, such as sinking fund costs going from zero to £250 without any warning. I therefore welcome the Competition and Markets Authority’s investigation into leaseholds, but what assurances can the Minister give to current leaseholders who face increasing costs? Will he put a moratorium on new leaseholds while the CMA does its work, to ensure that there are fewer victims?; Council tax arrears are a growing problem. In 2018, an estimated 2.2 million households were in arrears, and in 2016-17, people paid an estimated £129 million in bailiff fees and court costs on top of the arrears. As part of the review into council tax collection, will the Minister commit to reviewing the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992, to encourage councils to stop using liability orders and bailiffs?; Will the Secretary of State update the House on what he and his Department are doing to ensure that every council is meeting its commitment to and obligations under the armed forces covenant?; Given that waiting for the social care Green Paper makes Godot seem prompt, will the Minister agree to meet representatives of the Opposition parties, as well as leaders of the all-party Local Government Association, to use the LGA’s excellent Green Paper as a starting point for fixing our broken social care system?
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): As the hon. Lady will know, a number of those enforcement powers are led by the Home Office, and co-ordination between councils and the police is imperative. She will know that I laid a written statement on that a while back. Discussions continue with my ministerial colleagues, because I recognise the pressures. If there are specific examples that the hon. Lady would like to draw to my attention, I would be pleased to receive them.
Violent Crime — House of Commons, 2019-06-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Victoria Atkins (Conservative, Centre-right): It is with great sadness that I stand here today following events over the weekend, including a fatal stabbing in the constituency of the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), fatal stabbings in Tooting and West Ham, and a fatal shooting in Plumstead. Those incidents are subject to police investigations; arrests have been made in some cases, but I know that the House will understand that I cannot go into any more detail on those particular cases at this point These events are a stark reminder that serious violence is a continuing threat. There is no single or simple answer, and the police, local authorities, police and crime commissioners and others are working with us, taking action on a number of fronts, locally, regionally and nationally, in the immediate term and in the longer term In the immediate term, we continue to support the police response to serious violence. We have made it simpler for the police in those areas most affected to use section 60 no-suspicion stop-and-search powers. The new £100 million serious violence fund is already helping the police in those areas most affected: £65 million has now been allocated and work is under way to deliver the remaining £35 million to support the roll-out and expansion of violence reduction units As I think hon. Members acknowledge, however, the root causes of serious violence will take time to tackle. That is why we are focusing so strongly on prevention and early intervention, to stop our young people turning to violence in the first place. We are investing more than £220 million in projects under the youth endowment fund and our early intervention youth fund, and we have run a public consultation on a new legal duty to underpin the multi-agency, or public health, approach to tackling serious violence. We are reviewing the responses and will report as soon as possible We also continue to support police co-ordinated action under Operation Sceptre. The latest phase of the operation took place in March and saw almost 11,000 knives taken off the streets. Through our #knifefree media campaign, we have sent new lesson plans to 20,000 teachers in advance of the school summer holidays. Now that the Offensive Weapons Act 2019 has received Royal Assent, we will begin to bring its measures into force, including the piloting of knife crime prevention orders. As the House will know, following the Prime Minister’s serious youth violence summit at the beginning of April, a new ministerial taskforce is driving action right across Government to renew our efforts in tackling serious violence We are working closely with police and crime commissioners, including the Mayor of London, the police and other partners to tackle violence and to save lives. We remain determined to protect the public and to stop more lives being taken, but Members will appreciate that there is no short cut to tackling serious violence.
Violent Crime — House of Commons, 2019-06-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Victoria Atkins (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Gentleman for his urgent question and for his attendance at the roundtable I hosted recently, along with the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service, to update the House on our efforts to tackle serious violence. If I may say so, I think the hon. Gentleman has got the tone right. Putting aside comments from overseas or elsewhere, the job of work is to tackle serious violence The hon. Gentleman mentions police resources. He will know that London has already set up a serious violence taskforce and a violence reduction unit. The taskforce has some 300 dedicated officers—I have been out on a raid with them—targeting the hotspot areas within London. The commissioner and others in the policing world are doing specific work across the country to identify and target hotspot areas. I hope the hon. Gentleman welcomed the announcement in the spring statement of a further £100 million to tackle serious violence. The Met is receiving about £20 million of that to support surge policing. As I say, announcements will be made imminently in relation to the outstanding money and the creation of violence reduction units, as well as those that have already been created We have seen a huge increase in stop and search across the Met and other policing areas. We analyse this very carefully, and I am pleased that at the most recent meeting that the Home Secretary held with chief constables, they all reported that levels of complaints about stop and search have dropped dramatically. Many of us understand that to be because of the use of body-worn cameras, which provide reassurance not only to officers, but importantly, to the public In terms of discussions with MHCLG, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will have welcomed the recent announcement by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on the specific funding of knife crime projects On the spending review, we are working across Government to ensure that we have a cross-governmental spending review programme to help the children who are not just most at risk of serious violence, but have other forms of vulnerabilities, which, sadly, I have to deal with in my brief, including, for example, domestic abuse. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will understand that I cannot go into the specifics of the spending review at the moment, but the fact that we have seen an increase this year of more than £1 billion, including the £100 million in the spring statement, and that we have the help of police and crime commissioners, is a firm statement of intention by the Home Secretary and the Government. I thank him again for his urgent question.
Violent Crime — House of Commons, 2019-06-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): I was delighted to hear what my hon. Friend had to say about targeting hotspots. Does she agree that it is now clear that properly used and monitored stop and search is part of the answer, and will she confirm that the Government will continue along that line?
Violent Crime — House of Commons, 2019-06-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Victoria Atkins (Conservative, Centre-right): I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for the experience that he brings to the House from his shadow portfolios over the years. We have always said that stop and search is a vital tool for law enforcement. We are all conscious in this House that a few years ago there was a real problem regarding the trust that certain parts of our society felt in relation to stop and search, and we wanted to try to reassure communities. That reassurance is now there, particularly with the introduction of body-worn cameras. Victims’ families and others I speak to welcome the intelligence-led targeting of stop and search, as well as the section 60 search powers for moments when police action is necessary and needs to be immediate.
Violent Crime — House of Commons, 2019-06-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Victoria Atkins (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome the fact that the right hon. Lady welcomes our action to ensure that stop and search has the trust of more people in communities. We see it as a vital tool within the portfolio of tools that police officers and others have. If she does not mind, I will decline to respond to the point about President Trump, for the simple reason that, as I know from the urgent question, we all have at the forefront of our minds today the four families who have been affected in the most terrible way this weekend. I hope she will forgive me if, today of all days, I do not dive into the political pool.
Violent Crime — House of Commons, 2019-06-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Victoria Atkins (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for his participation in the recent roundtable. I can reassure colleagues across the House that hon. Members, particularly those representing the constituencies most affected by knife crime, will benefit from regular updates from the Home Office ministerial team. The roundtable was one example of that. We know that drugs and the gang culture around them are key drivers of serious violence—we have only to look at recent reports of what is allegedly happening in Liverpool—and one way we are attempting to tackle that is through the independent review of drug use in the 21st century led by Professor Dame Carol Black. We will consider the results carefully and, as he says, with an open mind.
Violent Crime — House of Commons, 2019-06-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Victoria Atkins (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman is always a constructive and critical friend of the Government in this sphere. I will deal with his last point first. We have to reiterate to young people, particularly in the areas most affected by serious violence, that the police are on their side. I do not underestimate the complexity of this piece of work. It will take a great deal of time for the police to rebuild their relationships. Just a couple of weeks ago, I invited into the Home Office current and former gang members to listen to them myself and hear about their day-to-day lives, the challenges they face and their thoughts on how we can improve not just the rates of serious violence but their lives more generally. I have taken great inspiration from those conversations, as well as from my meetings with the families of victims from across the country. There are various plans in motion to assist with the public relationship between the police and young people in particular, and there is one in particular I want to focus on. I hope the hon. Gentleman does not mind if I do not go into detail at very early stage, as I do not want to announce something before it has happened, but we are very conscious of the need to build relationships between the police and the people they are trying to protect.
Violent Crime — House of Commons, 2019-06-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Thomas Hollobone (Conservative, Centre-right): While there is a definite link between drugs, criminal gangs and knife crime, and while the police response must involve a surge in visible policing and discretionary stop and search, surely we must place greater emphasis on intelligence-led detective work to break up the criminal gangs, and on exemplary sentences for the gang leaders who are caught.
Violent Crime — House of Commons, 2019-06-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Victoria Atkins (Conservative, Centre-right): There is an understandable tendency to focus on the law enforcement response and on our early prevention strategy, but an important part of this formula is the behaviour of serious organised crime gangs. These are the people who exploit our young people and children, these are the people who try to extend their drug markets across the country, and these are the people whom we absolutely must target if we are to bring an end to this. Along with the Minister for Security and Economic Crime, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace), I have emphasised the need to target serious organised crime, including the profits that the criminals make from their disgraceful, disgusting business. I shall be happy to discuss the issue with my hon. Friend in more detail after the urgent question, but I can assure him that tackling serious organised crime is an essential part of our overall efforts to target serious violence.
Violent Crime — House of Commons, 2019-06-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Victoria Atkins (Conservative, Centre-right): In the letter, we made clear that while the spring statement included £100 million for police forces, the Home Secretary had committed himself to making resources for them an absolute priority in our spending review. In our conversations with chief constables who are either already setting up violence reduction units locally in, for instance, the west midlands, or are beginning to do so as a result of this announcement, we fully acknowledge that the funds cannot be just for a single year As for the youth endowment fund, we have locked in the money over 10 years, precisely because we have listened to local charities and those who work closely with young people. They say that it is often the short-term resourcing that is a problem, so we are investing £200 million, although it is expected to be more over the 10-year period. To demonstrate the urgency that we have ascribed to this issue, we have managed to move £200 million off the Government books in, I think, an almost unprecedentedly short time—a matter of a couple of months—which will seem pretty extraordinary to anyone who has not served in a Government Department. We have put the fund into an independent charitable trust, which is running it. The bids for the first round will close on 23 July, so if there are local charities that Members think should apply, I ask them please to press them into doing so. We expect the trust to make the first announcements of bids in the autumn.
Violent Crime — House of Commons, 2019-06-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Martin John Vickers (Conservative, Centre-right): Our current focus is obviously on the tragic events that took place in London over the weekend, but may I urge the Minister not to lose sight of the growing concerns of my constituents, from Barton in the north to Cleethorpes and the villages in the south? Thankfully, Humberside police numbers have been increased significantly and they do some excellent work, but they need continuing reassurance that resources will be made available to provincial forces such as theirs.
Violent Crime — House of Commons, 2019-06-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Victoria Atkins (Conservative, Centre-right): It is always a pleasure to answer a question from my constituency neighbour. We might be separated by a constabulary boundary, but I absolutely understand the ripple effect of serious organised crime and of county lines gangs in areas such as ours. That is why one of our first actions to help those force areas that might not have the experience of gangland activity of some of our larger urban or metropolitan forces is the setting up of the national co-ordination centre on county lines, in order to help spread good practice. I am pleased to say that in just the few months it has been operating that centre has caused more than 1,000 arrests and the safeguarding of more than 1,300 vulnerable people.