argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Lesser-taught languages — House of Commons, 2015-03-24
Topic: Foreign Trade
Daniel Robert Kawczynski (Conservative, Centre-right): When the Prime Minister appointed me as his envoy to the central and eastern European diaspora in the United Kingdom, I was obviously very pleased. I am the first British Member of Parliament ever to have been born in Poland. As I said earlier, when I go to Warsaw and speak to representatives of non-governmental organisations, of commercial operations and of the Government, the conversation is completely different when I speak in Polish. People open up and tell me things that they would not normally tell me, and I am able to engage with them in a completely different way As a result, I have now asked a lady in Shrewsbury to help me to improve my Polish, and she comes every Saturday to teach me and my daughter, Alexis. Alexis is eight years old, and she is much better at learning the language than I am, as children often are. Alexis had come to me and said, "Daddy, I’m half Polish and I want to learn the language." That made my heart melt; I was so proud of her. I very much hope that she will do Polish A-level one day, and that she will be able to speak the language fluently. I know that, whatever walk of life she follows—perhaps she will have a business career—knowing a second language will give her a huge advantage. If we are going to remain in the European Union, it is vital that we engage with our political counterparts in their own language I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois). He and I share a passion for British exports; we both come from an exports background. I spent 14 years exporting British goods around the world before I became a Member of Parliament. If we look at the world map, we see that we are exporting most to English-speaking countries but that, surprisingly, there is a huge dearth—a void—of British commercial interests in many parts of the world simply because we do not understand the language. The Prime Minister has set a target of £1 trillion of exports by 2020, which some say is unachievable. I believe it can be achieved, but we have to help the small and medium-sized enterprises, to which my hon. Friend the Member referred. One in five SMEs is exporting and if we can get that to one in four, we will completely wipe out our trade balance deficit. We are not going to get back to substantial economic prosperity in this country unless our SMEs are exporting to countries to which hitherto we have not exported. These languages are of huge importance in that, so I implore the Minister to take that into account. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North and I am very grateful for what he has done. I very much look forward to hearing from the Minister about the interventions he is going to make to ensure that these vital language courses stay.
Lesser-taught languages — House of Commons, 2015-03-24
Topic: Government Operations
Richard Michael Bacon (Conservative, Centre-right): I am listening with great interest, but I hope my hon. Friend recognises the difference between, on the one hand, the unsurprising commercial considerations of commercial contractors making decisions in the short term, and on the other hand, the interests of this country, which are longer term. I am slightly uncomfortable with the language he is using about the choice being for the examining boards to make—that it is for them to decide what they offer. Surely it is for us as a country and as the House of Commons, and for Her Majesty’s Government, to decide what we want to do, and then to make sure that arrangements are in place—whether they are commercial or otherwise—to achieve the goals that we want to achieve?
Lesser-taught languages — House of Commons, 2015-03-24
Topic: Education
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): I will come to that in a moment. First, I wanted to point out to my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North and to other hon. Members that OCR plans to continue offering an IGCSE in first language Turkish, which I hope will be of interest to many of my hon. Friend’s constituents who already speak Turkish.
Lesser-taught languages — House of Commons, 2015-03-24
Topic: Education
Nick de Bois (Conservative, Centre-right): I want to put it on record that that has been examined by many people, but it is nowhere near the standard that we require for A-level and it will not achieve the objective, for example, of helping someone get into a university with that qualification.
Lesser-taught languages — House of Commons, 2015-03-24
Topic: Education
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): I will take that point to the awarding organisations. Although the IGCSE will not count in school performance tables, the qualification is recognised by further and higher education as a demonstration of a student’s proficiency in the language. Clearly, though, the availability of the IGCSE is not a full substitute for a GCSE in Turkish as a foreign language, for those who are learning it as a second language rather than as a first language I have listened to the powerful case made by my hon. Friend and other hon. Members this evening on behalf of their constituents and others who recognise the importance of languages to our economy. I should point out, for the sake of balance in this debate, that the Turkish GCSE attracted only 1,403 entries last year, and for the Turkish A-level there were only 354 entries. Indeed, the entry figures have been consistently low for a number of years These relatively small numbers create some genuine difficulties for awarding organisations. In addition to diseconomies of scale, they may struggle to recruit sufficient staff to mark the exam and find it more difficult to set grade boundaries, given the statistical variability which is more likely in smaller cohorts. Nevertheless, I believe that these problems may well have solutions. Exam boards manage to recruit markers for the current version of the GCSE and they manage to set grade boundaries effectively. My hon. Friend is correct. It is not the Government who are applying pressure, financial or otherwise, to reduce the number of foreign language GCSEs; quite the contrary. Having listened carefully to the arguments made by him and others, both during the debate and outside the Chamber, I will raise his concerns and those of other hon. Members with the chief executives of the awarding organisations, including OCR and AQA, and I will invite them to reconsider their current position—I will do that tomorrow—and to subordinate what I believe to be a commercial calculation to the far more significant long-term economic and cultural considerations for this country. In doing so, I will also question them closely about the financial rationale for their decisions I am very grateful to my hon. Friend and others for raising this important issue, and I pay tribute to his firm support for the key place of languages in our long-term plan for education and the economy Question put and agreed to.
Communications Data — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): Our law enforcement and intelligence agencies continue to face a decline in their ability to obtain the communications data they need. This is caused by the use of modern technology and changes in the way in which people communicate. We believe that further changes to the law are needed to maintain capabilities. We cannot let cyberspace become a haven for terrorists and criminals.
Communications Data — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): It is very clear that although this Government have taken some steps to close the gap, significant gaps remain. The Joint Committee on the draft Communications Data Bill identified that, but we have not been able to bring those measures through in this Parliament. We need to remedy that. Given that about 95% of serious crime cases involve the use of communications data, those measures are an essential tool in fighting crime, and we are determined to take further action to close the gap and make sure that our police and security agencies have the powers they need.
Communications Data — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): This Government have invested heavily in capabilities to deal with cybercrime through the establishment of the new cybercrime unit in the National Crime Agency and the work of police forces throughout the country to ensure that we have the digital forensics—the digital information to fight the new crime types. The hon. Gentleman clearly does not recognise the important achievements of this Government in cutting crime, at a time of having to save money to deal with the deficit that we inherited from Labour.
Anti-radicalisation Programmes — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): We continually monitor and evaluate the Channel programme to ensure its effectiveness. Through the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 we have placed the programme on a statutory basis. The duty aims to secure local co-operation and delivery in all areas and we, of course, work closely with international partners to make sure that we are sharing expertise and best practice in tackling extremism and radicalisation. I have today published the latest annual report on our counter-terrorism strategy, Contest, alongside the annual report on the serious and organised crime strategy, and copies of both reports will be made available in the Vote Office.
Anti-radicalisation Programmes — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Technology
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): More than 2,000 people have gone through Channel since it was rolled out nationally in 2012, and hundreds have been offered support. This is dealt with case by case. It is not appropriate for everybody to be put into the Channel programme, but it has been effective and we are seeing significant numbers of people referred to it.
Anti-radicalisation Programmes — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Crispin Jeremy Rupert Blunt (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome my right hon. Friend bringing clarity about what is and what is not acceptable in the context of radicalisation and extremism. In an environment where our press and media are prone to hysterics and have the capacity to achieve the objectives of the enemies of our society by sowing fear and anxiety where none need exist, will she continue to proceed calmly and on the basis of the evidence?
Anti-radicalisation Programmes — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes a very important point about proceeding on the basis of the evidence. I am grateful for his comments about remarks that I made earlier today about the necessity for us to develop a wider partnership to counter extremism across its broadest spectrum so that we can deal with the hateful beliefs that the extremists are propagating.
Anti-radicalisation Programmes — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his comments about my speech. He is right. As I made clear in that speech, Government cannot deal with this alone; we need to work with families, communities and civil society. The message that the Government have given to families consistently in relation to those who might be travelling to Syria to get involved in terrorist-related activity, or to be with terrorist groups, is that the sooner they can give information to the authorities, the easier it is to work with them to ensure that their young people are not put into that danger.
Anti-radicalisation Programmes — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): No, we are not going back to where we started. First, the hon. Lady has made a fundamental mistake in her question in saying that my speech this morning related to Prevent. It did not; it related to the new counter-extremism strategy that the Government are introducing. Secondly, when we came into government we found that the Labour Government were funding extremist organisations, and members of the Labour party were standing on platforms embracing extremist hate preachers. Government Members take a very different view.
Extremism — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): Today I delivered a speech on the challenge of extremism in which I set out the need to develop a better understanding of the threat from extremism; to promote more assertively our values and the proposition that everybody living in this country is equal and free to lead their lives as they see fit; to ensure an effective response from the state; and to build up the capacity of civil society to identify, challenge and defeat extremism. I made it clear that the challenge to the extremists must be centred on a new partnership consisting of every single person and organisation in our country that wants to defeat extremism.
Extremism — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Atta-Ur-Rehman Chishti (Conservative, Centre-right): In the light of recent incidents, including that of the three young London girls who travelled to Syria, does the Secretary of State have any plans to set up a hotline for parents concerned about extremism, so that they can seek professional advice if they believe their children could be at risk, as is the case in Australia?
Extremism — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): There are a number of opportunities available to families to report concern, including the anti-terrorist hotline. The Metropolitan police also made a further call to families last week to encourage them to report as early as possible, and organisations such as Families Against Stress and Trauma are actively working in communities to help people understand what they need to do when they are concerned about their children.
Extremism — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend raises an important point. We have looked at addressing the issue of those people and groups who act in a way that does not meet the current proscription threshold, and we will, indeed, introduce extremist banning orders and extremist disruption offers, which will do exactly what my hon. Friend says.
Extremism — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Education
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): Following the first girl leaving in December, assistance was given to the school by the local Prevent co-ordinator and the local authority’s schools officer, who went into the school to make arrangements for extra training to be given.
Organised Crime — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Karen Anne Bradley (Conservative, Centre-right): The Government are committed to tackling the threat of serious and organised crime. In 2013 we launched a comprehensive new strategy and a powerful new crime-fighting organisation—the National Crime Agency—which are already making a difference. We continue to strengthen our response through the Serious Crime Act 2015, the Modern Slavery Bill and strategy, and the anti-corruption plan. We have also forged new collaborative relationships with the private sector to tackle money laundering and to combat online child sexual exploitation
Organised Crime — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Anthony Brian Baldry (Conservative, Centre-right): The National Crime Agency has clearly had a good start, with 300 convictions in just the first six months. Will my hon. Friend confirm that the Serious Crime Act 2015 will ensure that the National Crime Agency continues to have the resources and powers to address serious and organised crime?
Organised Crime — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Karen Anne Bradley (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. He is right that the National Crime Agency has made a good start. We have looked carefully at where powers are needed to increase the weapons that it has in its arsenal, and the Serious Crime Act really assists the National Crime Agency and other police forces in making sure that they can tackle particularly criminal finances to stop the Mr Bigs keeping hold of their money.
Organised Crime — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Karen Anne Bradley (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady disappoints me. We have had this conversation on several occasions. The fact of the matter is that the National Crime Agency, through Operation Notarise and others, has protected more children from abuse than any other agency, and it is ensuring that children at risk of abuse are looked after and protected in a way that has never happened before.
Organised Crime — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Damian Howard Green (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the signal successes of the NCA is that it has made more than 600 arrests in dealing with online child sexual exploitation through the operation that she has just mentioned? Will she assure the House that this will continue to be a high priority, not just for the NCA but for each individual local force?
Organised Crime — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Karen Anne Bradley (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend, who has considerable experience in this area, will know full well that the National Crime Agency and local police take this issue incredibly seriously. Bringing the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre into the National Crime Agency, as a command within it, has increased both capability and capacity to consider such crime and to make sure that we find those criminals who want to hurt our children and prevent them from doing so.
Crime Rates — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Dominic Rennie Raab (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the Minister for that answer. While police funding has been cut by about a fifth, police-recorded crime has fallen by 14%, and by 28% across Elmbridge in my constituency. Will she join me in commending front-line officers in Surrey and across the country for the great job they are doing? Does that fall not demonstrate how vital reform is, and that public services cannot be judged only by the amount of money going in?
Police Budgets — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Michael Penning (Conservative, Centre-right): I would have thought that the hon. Lady would have praised the work that is being done by Avon and Somerset police, rather than following the party line. In her constituency there has actually been a 5% increase in front-line officers, who are not doing back-room work, and a 21% cut in crime.
Police Budgets — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Michael Penning (Conservative, Centre-right): I assure my right hon. Friend that each time I go into any force I say to anybody who listens to me not only that it is their duty to address rural crime—my constituency has large rural areas—but that all crime, no matter where it is, needs to be detected and prosecuted.
Post-study Work Visas — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Education
Questions: What discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Scotland on the potential introduction of a scheme to allow international students graduating from Scottish further and higher education institutions to remain in Scotland to work for a defined period of time.
Karen Anne Bradley (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend will know that the Russell Group of universities, of which Edinburgh is a member, has seen a 30% increase in the number of applications from overseas students since 2010, showing that studying in the United Kingdom is an attractive offer to students. There is no cap on the number of students who can stay in the UK after completing their degree, provided they have a graduate-level job, get an internship or become a graduate entrepreneur.
Police Forces: Finance — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Michael Penning (Conservative, Centre-right): The Home Secretary and I have made it clear that there is no question but that the police will have the resources to do their important work. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary has reported that forces up and down the country are reducing crime and protecting communities, while balancing their books.
Police Forces: Finance — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Michael Penning (Conservative, Centre-right): I like the hon. Lady—I get on with her really well—but she should apologise to her constituents for not mentioning that crime is down by 9% in her constituency and across Lancashire, something we should all be very proud of.
Police Forces: Finance — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Michael Penning (Conservative, Centre-right): What has happened on the Home Secretary’s watch and on my watch is that crime in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency is down by 20%, something that is forgotten every time Labour Members stand up in this House.
Police Numbers: Lancashire — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Michael Penning (Conservative, Centre-right): Crime has fallen by a fifth across the country and by 9% in my right hon. Friend’s constituency. That is because we have proved that more can be done with less. We should be very proud of police forces across the country, particularly in Lancashire.
Police Numbers: Lancashire — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Nigel Martin Evans (Conservative, Centre-right): Unlike the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper), I want to praise the work of the Lancashire constabulary in my county, where crime has gone down by 19% since 2011. Antisocial behaviour is down by 35.8% and robbery in the past 12 months is down by 47%, which is a remarkable figure. Will the Minister assure the House that the Lancashire constabulary will, under a Conservative Government, have sufficient resources to carry on doing its great work in the next five years?
Police Numbers: Lancashire — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Michael Penning (Conservative, Centre-right): Not only will we guarantee that, we will continue to roll out the specialist equipment that is helping the police day in, day out, especially body-worn cameras. They are ensuring that more people in the community are protected, the officers are protected and we get more convictions, something I expect to see in Lancashire, as well as in the rest of the country.
Sham Marriages — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
James Peter Brokenshire (Conservative, Centre-right): This month, the Government introduced a new scheme to tackle sham marriages and sham civil partnerships allowing the Home Office to investigate suspected sham cases under an extended 70-day notice period. Since April 2014, we have intervened in more than 2,000 suspected sham marriages, and last year 30 organised crime groups involved in arranging sham marriages were disrupted, with many receiving long custodial sentences.
Crime (Northamptonshire) — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Thomas Hollobone (Conservative, Centre-right): We are blessed in Northamptonshire with excellent and hard-working policemen and women, and it is marvellous that crime has fallen. Given that we were told by Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition that crime would rise because of the police budget cuts, why does my right hon. Friend think it has actually come down?