argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill — House of Commons, 2018-06-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Stephen John Doughty (Labour, Centre-left): I completely agree with my right hon. Friend on that point. We are very lucky in Wales that, thanks to the investment from the Welsh Labour Government, we still have substantial numbers of police community support officers on our streets. They play a crucial role. All the police officers I talk to, including senior police officers, tell me about the real pressures and strains they face, and the impact of the lack of community policing on the frontline in the fight against terrorism.
Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill — House of Commons, 2018-06-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Diane Julie Abbott (Labour, Centre-left): I agree with my hon. Friend. That is what we are hearing from police leaders all the time. They want to do their very best against terrorism, but the cuts to the number of officers puts them under a great deal of strain Broadly, and in principle, we support the Bill. As the Home Secretary would expect, we will give it particularly careful scrutiny in Committee. We hope it will come out of Committee a better Bill. The safety of the nation depends on it.
Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill — House of Commons, 2018-06-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Kevan David Jones (Labour, Centre-left): I am not a liberal on any of these issues, but there is a problem with this. One difficulty the security services face is dealing with the amount of material that is out there and targeting the right people. If someone who has viewed such material three times can be pulled in by this provision, does that not throw the net rather wide, making it more difficult for law enforcement to target the right people?
Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill — House of Commons, 2018-06-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Stephen John Doughty (Labour, Centre-left): We obviously understand the need to detain individuals in certain circumstances, particularly at airports when they are potentially posing a risk. Does my hon. Friend agree that, if we are to exercise these powers sensitively, it is crucial to have regard to compensation for those who have been stopped and subsequently found not to be guilty of any offence—for example, if they have missed their flight or had property taken off them?
Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill — House of Commons, 2018-06-11
Topic: Law and Crime
Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds (Labour, Centre-left): I very much agree with my hon. Friend on that point. How we draw the law precisely in this area is very important. The powers will need to be backed up by appropriate safeguards and protections for those who are wholly innocent of any offence On the question of border security, the Bill as it stands means that a person who is detained for less than an hour will not have the right to access a solicitor, and that someone detained for more than an hour will be able to access a lawyer, but they could be required to do that within the sight and hearing of an officer. That will clearly have consequences for our cherished and valuable principle of legal professional privilege, under which people have the right to consult a lawyer and to do so in private. This is something that we will want to consider further in Committee, and I very much hope that the Government will listen to the points that have been made about the need for appropriate safeguards I hope that the considered nature of this debate will continue into the Committee stage. I look forward to working with colleagues on both sides of the House to scrutinise and, hopefully, improve this legislation in such a crucial policy area.
Public Services: Local Authority Funding — House of Commons, 2018-07-23
Topic: Social Welfare
Chinyelu Susan Onwurah (Labour, Centre-left): The Cabinet has followed your example by visiting Newcastle today, Mr Speaker, but rather than giving its members the welcome that they deserve, I came here to hear the Minister’s totally out-of-touch answer. Central Government funding for Newcastle has halved since 2010. The number of looked-after children has increased by a fifth since 2014, and the number of vulnerable adults has risen by the same proportion in the last year alone. Given a funding gap of £300 million in 2020 just to keep services running, how does the Minister think Newcastle can deliver good public services?
Public Services: Local Authority Funding — House of Commons, 2018-07-23
Topic: Government Operations
Clive James Charles Betts (Labour, Centre-left): There is a great deal of concern in local government about the financial cliff edge that is facing a number of authorities. The Public Accounts Committee recently asked the Department to do two things: to explain by the end of September why it believes that local authorities are sustainable in the current spending round; and to agree with local authorities within 12 months a definition of financial sustainability and a methodology for assessing risk. Those are both important requests. Will the Minister ensure that his Department complies with them?
Public Services: Local Authority Funding — House of Commons, 2018-07-23
Topic: Government Operations
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): Last week the Municipal Journal reported the Minister as saying that councils will be unhappy with the outcome of the fair funding review, so can he clarify just how unfair his review is likely to be and which types of council will be hardest hit?
Public Services: Local Authority Funding — House of Commons, 2018-07-23
Topic: Government Operations
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): But it will not wash, Mr Speaker. The Tory-led Local Government Association is warning that the funding gap for councils is now due to grow to £8 billion and the Public Accounts Committee has damned the financial capability of the Ministry to sort out this mess. With Northamptonshire the first broken shire and other local authorities of all types teetering on the cliff edge, when, rather than managing down expectations about fair funding, is the Minister going to stand up for the sector and demand the resources our public services so desperately need?
Local Government Funding Allocation — House of Commons, 2018-07-23
Topic: Social Welfare
Lilian Rachel Greenwood (Labour, Centre-left): Since early 2015, the Government’s troubled families programme has contributed funding to help with early support and preventive support for priority families in Nottingham, which is vital given the high levels of deprivation and the pressures on children’s services in our society. By intervening early, family support workers have helped to tackle crime and antisocial behaviour, helped parents to get back into work and reduced the need for care proceedings. Will the Minister meet me and my hon. Friends the Members for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie) and for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) to discuss his plans to support councils working with families when the programme funding ends in 2020?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2018-07-23
Topic: Law and Crime
James McMahon (Labour, Centre-left): We have all seen the shocking impact of police cuts and rising crime, but that has to be put together with real-terms cuts of 59% to crime reduction, 85% to community safety and 33% to CCTV monitoring, plus very deep cuts to youth services and community development. Does the Secretary of State believe that any of those cuts have had an impact on the increase in crime and antisocial behaviour?
Foreign Fighters and the Death Penalty — House of Commons, 2018-07-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Yvette Cooper (Labour, Centre-left): The whole House would agree that those who commit barbaric crimes should be locked away for the rest of their lives, but what the Minister has said is a contradiction of the long-standing abolition of the death penalty strategy—No. 10 have reaffirmed these words today—which says: "It is the longstanding policy of the UK to oppose the death penalty in all circumstances as a matter of principle." In this case, the Home Secretary seems to have unilaterally ripped up those principles on a Friday afternoon in the summer. What does the Minister think "principle" and "all circumstances" mean if somehow these circumstances are not "all circumstances"? Is he not actually saying that principles mean nothing to the UK Government any more?
Foreign Fighters and the Death Penalty — House of Commons, 2018-07-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Hilary James Benn (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister just referred, in quoting the code, to the absence of assurances. What the Home Secretary wrote in the letter to the US Attorney General was that he was not even going to seek assurances. Therefore, the question that has been asked by many Members still holds: why have the Government decided to breach a long-standing policy against the death penalty in all circumstances in this case? We all want these individuals, if there is evidence, to face justice, but it is precisely because of the barbaric nature of the crimes of which they are accused that we as a country have to show that we are better than them and what they did. That is why there is so much unhappiness, I suspect in many parts of the House, about what the Home Secretary has done.
Foreign Fighters and the Death Penalty — House of Commons, 2018-07-23
Topic: International Affairs
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): The Government have quite rightly tried over the past year to persuade China, Russia and Pakistan to suspend the death penalty. Is that not going to look like arrant hypocrisy if we adopt a different standard when it applies to the United States of America’s request? Will the Minister now please answer—if he does not have the detail now, will he write to all of us?—the question that the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) asked: when did the Government last choose not to seek such assurances?
Foreign Fighters and the Death Penalty — House of Commons, 2018-07-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Stella Judith Creasy (Labour, Centre-left): Everybody in this House agrees that the crimes being talked about are abhorrent and that there is a desperate need for justice, but no straw man should conceal the fact that that should never come at the loss of our principled opposition to the death penalty. If the Minister is so confident that this is the correct decision, will he publish the legal advice that he and other Ministers have had that confirms they do not even need to ask the question for this country? On that point, he says that the Prime Minister is aware of this decision. Does she agree?
Foreign Fighters and the Death Penalty — House of Commons, 2018-07-23
Topic: Law and Crime
Kevin Denis Brennan (Labour, Centre-left): The point about a principled opposition to capital punishment is that it exists in all circumstances—not just in areas where there might be a miscarriage of justice, but in the most hideous, heinous crimes of the kind we are describing, where very clear evidence is available. Will the Government tell the House whether, when they spoke to the American authorities, the American authorities told them that no such assurances would be given if the Government sought them?
Foreign Fighters and the Death Penalty — House of Commons, 2018-07-23
Topic: International Affairs
Thangam Elizabeth Rachel Debbonaire (Labour, Centre-left): I am baffled as to which of the many questions running through my head to ask. I could ask why the Minister had no answer for the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), because surely precedent is extremely important in this case. The Minister does not even seem to know when the country last made such a serious decision not to seek reassurances. May I press him to commit himself to finding out those reasons, and to expressing at least some understanding of why it baffles so many of us, on both sides of the House, that he will not seek those reassurances in this case, given that he has just said that he would have done so if there had been the possibility of a prisoner’s going to Guantanamo? It makes no sense.
Foreign Fighters and the Death Penalty — House of Commons, 2018-07-23
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): Last week the Foreign Office confirmed the Government’s position that the death penalty undermines human dignity and that opposing it was in all circumstances a matter of principle. So that confirms what I think the Minister has said, which is that this is an individual decision by this Home Secretary. But the only reason the Minister seems to have given for why the assurance was not sought is that that would not facilitate trial in the United States, so has the US imposed a condition that that assurance is not sought in this case?
Pairing — House of Commons, 2018-07-23
Topic: Government Operations
Valerie Carol Marian Vaz (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting the urgent question, and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on successfully bringing another Cabinet Minister to the Chamber to answer a question about breaking a pair. It clearly shows the seriousness of the political situation facing the Government Chief Whip that the deputy Prime Minister has to come to answer the urgent question, to try to avoid another damaging Cabinet exit. Clearly, the Government Chief Whip decided to phone a friend, and it was not the Leader of the House The deputy Prime Minister said that the Government had a better record on pairing. Could he explain what that means because a pair is twice—you have two pairs? The issue is simple: it comes down to the integrity of the word of a member of Her Majesty’s Government, the Government Chief Whip. You will recall, Mr Speaker, that a former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, demanded a rerun of a vote—and got it—from a Labour Government The answers in the statements made by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House on 18 July confirmed that the Government Chief Whip was less than candid with his fellow Ministers, including the Prime Minister, by not declaring that he actively instructed Conservative MPs to break pairing arrangements. It is clear that the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House have unwittingly misled the House by characterising the Government Chief Whip’s action as an "honest mistake". This is a serious breach of the ministerial code Does the Minister for the Cabinet Office believe that the Government Chief Whip’s integrity is above reproach? We are asked to believe that the breaking of the pair for the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) was an "honest mistake", while he admits that he ordered others to knowingly break their pairs. Can the Minister confirm that that is the case? Can he confirm that the Government Chief Whip rang those who refused to break their pairs to demand an explanation as to why? If that was the case, that in itself is a clear breach of a number of the Nolan principles, such as integrity and honesty, that form the basis of the ministerial code In her foreword to the latest version of the ministerial code, the Prime Minister states that it "sets out the standards of behaviour expected from all those who serve in Government…In abiding by this Code, we will show that Government can be a force for good and that people can trust us" I reiterate our offer on Wednesday, following the previous urgent question, to discuss implementing a system of baby leave today without the need for a vote. How do the Government think that the business of the House—including Select Committee visits, international delegations, important ministerial negotiations, and even having a baby—can proceed when they admit that, under this Government Chief Whip, no one can or should trust them?
Pairing — House of Commons, 2018-07-23
Topic: Government Operations
Wesley Paul William Streeting (Labour, Centre-left): We know things are bad for the Government when they send out their wisest head and safest pair of hands, but unfortunately the Minister for the Cabinet Office has been sent out to defend the indefensible. In addition to the very serious questions that still surround the pairing arrangements for the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), it is clear from comments made by Conservative MPs to national newspapers that the Chief Whip ordered them to break their pairs. It is only because of their honour and integrity—and the Chief Whip’s misjudgement and inability to orchestrate a proper stitch-up—that that did not happen. Does the Minister for the Cabinet Office understand the damage that this has done not just to our confidence in the pairing system and with its impact on Members’ welfare, but to the integrity and public perception of this place? What are the Government going to do to repair the reputation of Parliament and to accept that, because they did not win a majority at the last general election, they have to win votes by argument rather than by stitching things up behind closed doors?
Pairing — House of Commons, 2018-07-23
Topic: Government Operations
Conor Patrick McGinn (Labour, Centre-left): Allegations have been made and it is clear that there was a "misunderstanding about the pairing and voting arrangements"—[Official Report, 22 June 1976; Vol. 915, c. 1361.] Those words were uttered in 1976 from the Government Dispatch Box by the then Prime Minister, James Callaghan, during a similar controversy. He and the then Leader of the Opposition agreed that the only way to resolve matters was for the Chief Whips to meet and the vote to be rerun. Precedent has been set. When will the Government show the integrity that I know the Minister for the Cabinet Office and many Government colleagues possess in abundance?
Pairing — House of Commons, 2018-07-23
Topic: Government Operations
Stella Judith Creasy (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister says that we should not believe the press reports that we have seen, so can he settle this matter once and for all? Did the Chief Whip also call other MPs and ask them to break the pair alongside the right hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis)? Because if he did, that is not a mistake, it is a policy I say to the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) that this does matter, because if the public cannot trust the Government to organise themselves, how can they trust them to organise a country?
Pairing — House of Commons, 2018-07-23
Topic: Government Operations
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): I do worry about what happened last week and about the explanations that have subsequently been given. It is certainly true that, as the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) suggested, sometimes people do, inadvertently, accidentally and without any malice aforethought, break the Whip—[Interruption.] I am sorry—break the pair. People frequently break the Whip—that is a common feature on all sides these days. Sometimes people break the pair, and then they are always told off by the Whips for doing so, because it is the Whips’ own honour that is then in question—that is the point. The difference in this case is that the Chief Whip deliberately—not as an error but deliberately—sought to get somebody he knew to be paired to break that pair. That is a fundamental difference I say to the Minister that we need to get this sorted before the autumn, not just have a debate about it. The temperature in politics this year and in this Parliament—as well as the physical temperature—has already been very high, and we really do need to get it sorted. Otherwise we will be putting temptation in the Chief Whip’s way every single day of the week, all the way through to 29 March next year.
Pairing — House of Commons, 2018-07-23
Topic: Government Operations
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): What matters for present purposes is that two senior members of the Government conspired to break the rules to win a vote they thought they might lose. If I am wrong about that, can the Minister explain why? If I am right, why are they still in their posts?
Strengthening the Union — House of Commons, 2018-07-23
Topic: International Affairs
Wesley Paul William Streeting (Labour, Centre-left): Perhaps the Minister can explain, then, why the former Foreign Secretary described Northern Ireland’s role in the Brexit process as "the tail wagging the dog" and sought to dismiss the serious concerns about the prospects of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, or indeed, between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Perhaps she can explain why that was and dissociate the Government from those comments, now that the former Foreign Secretary has dissociated himself from the Government.
Strengthening the Union — House of Commons, 2018-07-23
Topic: International Affairs
Christopher Philip James Elmore (Labour, Centre-left): I speak as a proud Unionist, and I am very much in favour of the Union. The Minister must understand, however, that there are considerable concerns about Brexit and the Government’s long-term plan for regional continued development, which benefits my constituency enormously—structural funding, for example, and agricultural funding. Those uncertainties are not helping to keep the Union together. On direct funding to Wales, she has to accept that cutting electrification to Swansea from Cardiff and not supporting the tidal lagoon does not give us enormous confidence about this Government investing in Wales and its communities.
Strengthening the Union — House of Commons, 2018-07-23
Topic: Macroeconomics
Ian Murray (Labour, Centre-left): I am very grateful to the Minister—and may I compliment her on her rather fine Sean Connery impression earlier in her speech The Minister has just reeled off a list of service industries in this country, which, of course, are not covered by the Chequers agreement. What analysis has her Department conducted of how much the UK’s GDP will be reduced as a result of that agreement?
Strengthening the Union — House of Commons, 2018-07-23
Topic: International Affairs
Lesley Margaret Langan Laird (Labour, Centre-left): Today’s debate is on "Strengthening the Union", so I am going to start by talking about that concept and the ties that bind our Union together. Working together, our family of nations has achieved great things for the many and not just the few, and when we are once again united in common purpose, under a Labour Government, I know we will do great things again. Our shared history includes wartime courage, facing down fascism, building homes fit for heroes and the creation of the national health service—