argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Victims Strategy — House of Commons, 2018-10-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Sarah Deborah Champion (Labour, Centre-left): I agree with the right hon. Gentleman’s point. I know that a number of businesses are now training staff and colleagues to recognise the signs of domestic abuse and to support the victim by signposting the issue to the right agency I am now going to turn to my pet project. It involves a Government agency that is wilfully traumatising victims and operating a subjective system that often runs in the face of the law. Accompanying the announcement of the new victims strategy, it is most welcome that the Minister has announced a broad review of the criminal injuries compensation scheme and of the agency that administers it, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority—CICA. The scheme exists to provide compensation to victims of crime. Money can of course never heal the wounds, physical or mental, suffered by the victims of crime, but victims should at least be able to expect to receive the compensation to which they are entitled without those mental wounds being reopened by the administration body set up to support them. In short, CICA needs a radical overhaul to make it a victim-centred agency Victims’ needs, their rights and their wellbeing should be at the core of everything CICA does, but the reality is very different. My constituents’ experiences of CICA have been that it exists not to support them, to honestly assess their claims or to award redress for their suffering, but rather to pursue every possible option to deny their claims. This can include questioning their injury, questioning the rulings of courts, or more appallingly, accusing them of complicity in their abuse. At every turn, CICA ignores the needs of victims in order to maintain its balance sheet. The Minister’s review of the scheme cannot come soon enough for victims. Having supported a number of constituents through the process of making a claim, and through my extensive work with victims charities and organisations, it is abundantly clear to me that what is needed is a complete change in the culture of CICA and in how it treats the victims of crime. To be blunt, CICA’s attitude to victims stinks I first became aware of the failings of CICA as I was supporting victims and survivors of the appalling child sexual exploitation that took place in Rotherham. As the victims came forward and the investigations and prosecutions progressed, a number of my constituents pursued compensation through the criminal injuries compensation scheme. Those young women had been through the most horrendous abuse. Their childhoods were stolen from them by criminal gangs who groomed them, trafficked them and repeatedly raped them. For many, the psychological damage they suffered as children continues to haunt them years later, yet many of their claims for compensation were denied by CICA. Problematically, the rules of the scheme state that victims and survivors who have convictions, even for completely unrelated issues, must have their compensation awards reduced or withheld. This rule is particularly pertinent in cases of child sexual exploitation.
Victims Strategy — House of Commons, 2018-10-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Victoria Jane Foxcroft (Labour, Centre-left): From experience in my constituency, I know about the horrific events that people go through, and having to relive them causes trauma for families and local communities. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is why it is so important that we get a victims law?
Local Authority Funding: North-east — House of Commons, 2018-06-18
Topic: Government Operations
Stephen Hepburn (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister will be aware that north-east councils have had a 50% cut in Government grant since 2010. At the same time, the richest individuals in this country have had a £10 billion tax cut. Does he think it is right that these needless tax cuts are paid for by local government jobs, pay cuts and the loss of local government services?
Local Authority Funding: North-east — House of Commons, 2018-06-18
Topic: Government Operations
Chinyelu Susan Onwurah (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister knows that the slashing of funding for Newcastle City Council can be seen in the increased litter on our streets, increased crime rates as youth services are cut and reduced public services generally. What will he say to my constituents who want to know why central Government care so little for their wellbeing?
Adult Social Care — House of Commons, 2018-06-18
Topic: Social Welfare
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): Some 1.2 million older people in England are living with unmet care needs, according to Age UK. More than 400,000 fewer people are receiving publicly funded social care than in 2010. Council spending on adult social care fell by 10% in real terms between 2010 and 2015. A miserly £150 million in funding was announced for 2018-19 in the local government finance settlement, and now we hear that there is no funding for social care in yesterday’s NHS announcement. With social care in crisis, putting pressure on the NHS and sending councils across England towards bankruptcy, when is this Minister going to do his job and secure the resources that our councils need to give the elderly the dignity they so desperately deserve?
Northern Powerhouse — House of Commons, 2018-06-18
Topic: Government Operations
Michael Lee Amesbury (Labour, Centre-left): Cheshire West and Chester Council, Cheshire East Council, Warrington Borough Council, the local enterprise partnership and other stakeholders are determined in their quest to secure a devolution deal, yet increasingly frustrated. Will the Minister update the House on the timetable for the deal?
Northern Powerhouse — House of Commons, 2018-06-18
Topic: Macroeconomics
Barry John Sheerman (Labour, Centre-left): Should not the Government Front-Bench team learn this truth: that since the departure of the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, there has been no vision, no leadership and no result for the northern powerhouse? Can the Minister not provide some real leadership and let us catch up with some of these soft people in the south of England and London who get all the investment?
Local Authorities: Children’s Services — House of Commons, 2018-06-18
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: What assessment he has made of the effect on the long-term financial viability of local authorities of the use of their reserves to fund children's services.
Marie Elizabeth Rimmer (Labour, Centre-left): Baby P, Victoria Climbié, Shannon Matthews—I am sure the House remembers those names. Child safety is a major concern right across our country, with councils starting no fewer than 500 child protection investigations a day. St Helens Council has almost twice as many looked-after children as the national average and has pulled £5 million from reserves to fund their care. That is unsustainable. Does the Minister really realise what is at stake? What will the Minister do to ensure that councils have the money they need to support our vulnerable children, instead of washing his hands of this?
Local Authorities: Children’s Services — House of Commons, 2018-06-18
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: What assessment he has made of the effect on the long-term financial viability of local authorities of the use of their reserves to fund children's services.
James McMahon (Labour, Centre-left): We all want to live in a Britain where young people are safe, well cared for and nurtured, but for too many real life is very different. They rely instead on council safeguarding services to give them the protection they need, the very services that are facing a £2 billion funding gap and that have already overspent by £600 million. The question is simple: when can we see real action, with real money going directly to children’s services?
Local Authorities: Vulnerable Children — House of Commons, 2018-06-18
Topic: Social Welfare
Alexander Gordon Martin (Labour, Centre-left): Following the murder in Ipswich two weeks ago of a 17-year-old and the critical stabbing of a 16-year-old on Wednesday evening, does the Minister recognise the serious effects that cuts to support for looked-after children and other vulnerable young people are having on their ability to lead safe, productive and law-abiding lives?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2018-06-18
Topic: Transportation
Questions: My constituent Shirley Todd, a wheelchair user, carried out a survey of part of the city and discovered that 72% of businesses were inaccessible to wheelchair users. She has now launched a national campaign and petition. Will the Minister agree to consider plans to make local authorities responsible for proactively enforcing the provisions in the Equality Act 2010?; Local councils in Northamptonshire today launched their official five-week consultation on how the eight councils in the county might best be merged into two by 2020. Will the Secretary of State join me in encouraging all local residents to take part so that their views can be heard loud and clear?; Houses in multiple occupancy are an important part of a mixed housing economy, but when whole streets of former family properties become HMOs, it can put great pressure on local services and leave remaining residents feeling isolated. What actions does the Secretary of State intend to take to genuinely empower local residents to have a meaningful influence on their communities where traditional planning requirements do not apply?; Chelmsford is a rapidly growing city, with many new houses planned, but plans for a second railway station and bypass have been put off for too many years. Fortunately, we are through to the final round of bids for the housing infrastructure fund. Will the Minister update us on the timing and process for Chelmsford’s key bids?; My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be aware of my view—as he and I have discussed it—that most objections to large planning developments are based on the fact that the developments themselves add nothing to the local vernacular, do not acknowledge it and are often poorly built. That is partly owing to a lack of local planning officers and the fact that planning officers are poorly trained. Could the Government consider affiliating some of them to the Royal Institute of British Architects or the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, and empowering them so that they can stand against the volume house builders?
Alison McGovern (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Secretary of State for the letter that he wrote to me on 7 June about New Ferry. When I meet him, as he has invited me to do, will that invitation extend not just to me and to the Mayor of Liverpool city region, Steve Rotheram, but to residents of New Ferry?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2018-06-18
Topic: Transportation
Questions: My constituent Shirley Todd, a wheelchair user, carried out a survey of part of the city and discovered that 72% of businesses were inaccessible to wheelchair users. She has now launched a national campaign and petition. Will the Minister agree to consider plans to make local authorities responsible for proactively enforcing the provisions in the Equality Act 2010?; Local councils in Northamptonshire today launched their official five-week consultation on how the eight councils in the county might best be merged into two by 2020. Will the Secretary of State join me in encouraging all local residents to take part so that their views can be heard loud and clear?; Houses in multiple occupancy are an important part of a mixed housing economy, but when whole streets of former family properties become HMOs, it can put great pressure on local services and leave remaining residents feeling isolated. What actions does the Secretary of State intend to take to genuinely empower local residents to have a meaningful influence on their communities where traditional planning requirements do not apply?; Chelmsford is a rapidly growing city, with many new houses planned, but plans for a second railway station and bypass have been put off for too many years. Fortunately, we are through to the final round of bids for the housing infrastructure fund. Will the Minister update us on the timing and process for Chelmsford’s key bids?; My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be aware of my view—as he and I have discussed it—that most objections to large planning developments are based on the fact that the developments themselves add nothing to the local vernacular, do not acknowledge it and are often poorly built. That is partly owing to a lack of local planning officers and the fact that planning officers are poorly trained. Could the Government consider affiliating some of them to the Royal Institute of British Architects or the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, and empowering them so that they can stand against the volume house builders?
Diana Ruth Johnson (Labour, Centre-left): It is really good to see the northern powerhouse Minister on the Treasury Bench because in recent weeks there was a view that he had gone out of service when we were facing the rail chaos around the new timetabling, so could he tell us exactly what he has been doing to improve connectivity between the east and west of the north?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2018-06-18
Topic: Government Operations
Questions: My constituent Shirley Todd, a wheelchair user, carried out a survey of part of the city and discovered that 72% of businesses were inaccessible to wheelchair users. She has now launched a national campaign and petition. Will the Minister agree to consider plans to make local authorities responsible for proactively enforcing the provisions in the Equality Act 2010?; Local councils in Northamptonshire today launched their official five-week consultation on how the eight councils in the county might best be merged into two by 2020. Will the Secretary of State join me in encouraging all local residents to take part so that their views can be heard loud and clear?; Houses in multiple occupancy are an important part of a mixed housing economy, but when whole streets of former family properties become HMOs, it can put great pressure on local services and leave remaining residents feeling isolated. What actions does the Secretary of State intend to take to genuinely empower local residents to have a meaningful influence on their communities where traditional planning requirements do not apply?; Chelmsford is a rapidly growing city, with many new houses planned, but plans for a second railway station and bypass have been put off for too many years. Fortunately, we are through to the final round of bids for the housing infrastructure fund. Will the Minister update us on the timing and process for Chelmsford’s key bids?; My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be aware of my view—as he and I have discussed it—that most objections to large planning developments are based on the fact that the developments themselves add nothing to the local vernacular, do not acknowledge it and are often poorly built. That is partly owing to a lack of local planning officers and the fact that planning officers are poorly trained. Could the Government consider affiliating some of them to the Royal Institute of British Architects or the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, and empowering them so that they can stand against the volume house builders?
John Timothy Grogan (Labour, Centre-left): Has the Secretary of State yet personally had the chance to consider the important matter of Yorkshire devolution, and will he agree to meet the Yorkshire leaders from all parties before Yorkshire Day on 1 August—the Secretary of State personally?
Medicinal Cannabis — House of Commons, 2018-06-18
Topic: Law and Crime
Antonia Louise Antoniazzi (Labour, Centre-left): I will conclude right now. Why are the Government stuck in the dark ages? What will the Home Secretary do to speed up the process? In response to, "When?" the answers, "Next week," "Next month," or "In due course," are simply not good enough.
Medicinal Cannabis — House of Commons, 2018-06-18
Topic: Law and Crime
Frank Field (Labour, Centre-left): Alfie met the Prime Minister eight weeks ago and she instructed the Home Office to act; on Saturday, he had 30 seizures. Will the Home Office give the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning)—who is seeking to catch your eye, Mr Speaker—Lady Meacher and me the authority to go through border control with the drugs that Alfie needs? If the Minister will not act, may we?
Upskirting — House of Commons, 2018-06-18
Topic: Law and Crime
Catherine Elizabeth West (Labour, Centre-left): Has the Minister given some thought to how this potential Bill and then Act will be enforced? With the newspapers saying that only 5% of burglaries and robberies are being tackled by police, how does one expect that the law on these sorts of acts will be enforced by the police, who are so stretched? Will she have a resource implication chapter in her Bill?
NHS Long-Term Plan — House of Commons, 2018-06-18
Topic: Macroeconomics
Patrick Bosco McFadden (Labour, Centre-left): It is important to be honest about where public spending is coming from. Can the Secretary of State confirm that the Government’s own estimates, released in part by the Brexit Select Committee, show that far from there being a Brexit dividend, the plan that they are set to follow is scheduled to increase public borrowing by £55 billion a year by the end of the forecast period, meaning that this spending will have to be funded in spite of Brexit, not because of it?
NHS Long-Term Plan — House of Commons, 2018-06-18
Topic: Macroeconomics
Stephen John Doughty (Labour, Centre-left): Can we get the facts straight? The Welsh NHS is spending 8% more per head on NHS and social care combined than in England—per head—so let us not have any more stories about the Welsh NHS It is absolutely clear that there is no Brexit dividend. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says it, the Financial Times says it and the Government’s own analysis from the Treasury shows it. What is more, Brexit is already having a cost. The Home Office has had to have an extra almost £500 million in the past two years to pay for Brexit preparations, such as registering EU nationals, which would pay the salaries of 20,000 nurses. Will the Secretary of State admit that that is what is really going on—a Brexit deficit, not a dividend?
NHS Long-Term Plan — House of Commons, 2018-06-18
Topic: Social Welfare
Katherine Anne Green (Labour, Centre-left): May I press the Secretary of State on his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova), particularly in relation to profoundly disabled adults, who need not just excellent healthcare, not even just excellent physical and social care, but access to services that maximise their social participation? Will he say a little more about the work being done in parallel with the social care Green Paper?
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2018-06-18
Topic: Government Operations
Paul Christopher Blomfield (Labour, Centre-left): On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would appreciate your advice on what I think is a serious issue in relation to the provision of information to Members by the Home Office. In January I tabled a written parliamentary question seeking information on how many scientists and engineers had been refused a Tier 2 (General) certificate of sponsorship since November 2017 due to the annual cap having been reached. Despite the Home Office acknowledging that it held this information and not indicating that it would require disproportionate cost to compile it, it declined to provide it to me. However, the information was later released in response to a freedom of information request by the Campaign for Science and Engineering, with which I had been working on the issue. When I tabled a subsequent question asking for updated figures, given that this information was now in the public arena I assumed that the Home Office would provide it to me, but it refused again I am sure you will agree, Mr Speaker, that it is unacceptable that the Home Office will not provide Members of this House with information that it holds but which it is prepared to release in response to an FOI request. It makes FOIs a more effective way of obtaining information than a parliamentary question I have raised my concerns with the Chair of the Procedure Committee, who shares them, and I would appreciate your advice, Mr Speaker, on what else I should do to ensure that the work of Members is not undermined in this way.
Sewel Convention — House of Commons, 2018-06-18
Topic: Government Operations
Ian Murray (Labour, Centre-left): It is a great pleasure to be involved in this important debate and to follow the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Jack), although I take umbrage at his claiming in opening his speech that this debacle, which has actually been made by his own Government, is somehow the fault of democratically elected politicians going through the Lobby to vote for Lords amendments to a major piece of legislation. That is our democratic right. I am sure that many of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents wrote to him last week to ask him to support the 15 amendments that came back from the other place, in the same way that many of my constituents wrote to me. That is what we committed to do and it is certainly what we did last week The blame for the House having only 19 minutes to deal with the devolution issues lies squarely with the Government’s programme managers—the Leader of the House and the usual channels—who decided to make it a six-hour debate, with a knife at three hours, so that the second three hours was eaten into by votes. They could have taken a completely different approach to the programme motion and allowed the votes to happen and then another three-hour debate after that. This travesty and devastation, and the grievance that has been given to certain parties in the House, is of the Government’s own making.
Sewel Convention — House of Commons, 2018-06-18
Topic: Government Operations
Ian Murray (Labour, Centre-left): It is quite ridiculous, and I cannot help but feel that the programme motion was put in place for that very purpose. The Government would have known that the House would divide on the vast majority of those amendments, such that that three-hour knife would, by the nature of the process of amendments coming back from the other place in ping-pong, reduce the time available for debate I shall come to why it affects the Sewel convention, but the reason why everyone is so frustrated and angry about the process is that the Secretary of State—I will not get into the personal politics; I disagree with his politics fundamentally, but he is an honourable man and has always dealt with me fairly, and I think he will perhaps look back and regret some of the Government’s actions in this process—promised at the Dispatch Box, on several occasions, that this elected House would get to debate the amendments on devolution that were being put to the other place. He promised that the amendments would come in Committee, and they did not, and that they would come on Report, and they did not. His own Back Bencher, the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton), who is in his place, said that he would reluctantly back the Government’s position on the Opposition amendments, after he was given assurances by his own Front Benchers that the amendments would come on Report The very fact that the amendments have been tabled in the other place, meaning that the elected House has been unable to debate them or, indeed, have any kind of say in them, has left us with a grievance to exploit, because we have not even debated on the Floor of this Chamber the fundamental issues relating to the Sewel convention, the individual parts of the amendments, the impact on the Scottish Government, the impact on the Scottish Parliament, the impact on the UK Government or the impact on UK-wide frameworks that are being put in place as part of the process.