argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-11-28
Topic: Macroeconomics
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): This is the Budget that was trailed as the "Ruth" Budget for Scotland, and it is the Budget that the Scottish Tories have apparently stepped up to the plate and delivered for Scotland, so let us look at what they have delivered. They claim credit for the VAT exemption for the police and fire services. The SNP raised that in the Chamber 63 times and forced a vote on it, so we have clearly led the way. The Scottish Tories do not even seem to care about the need for a refund of the £140 million that has already been stolen What else have the Scottish Tories delivered? Nothing. Not one original idea in the Budget can be credited to them. We are still left with a rail budget that has been cut by £600 million in real terms, and with no Ayrshire growth deal. There was nothing about the £200 million CAP convergence uplift that was meant for Scotland and nothing about renewable energy, and we are faced with a real-terms revenue budget cut of half a billion pounds over the next two years. The 10 Democratic Unionist Members who still sit on the Opposition Benches managed to get a £1.5 billion package for a couple of key votes, and we are meant to believe that they are a solid voting lobby. There was one welcome measure for the oil and gas industry in relation to the transferable tax history, but, as is pointed out in paragraph 3.54 of the Red Book, the idea was first mooted in a Government paper in 2014, so it is certainly nothing to do with Scottish Tories. The fact that it is predicted to bring in £70 million makes it an easy decision for the Treasury anyway Today’s theme may be the future economy, but that future economy has already been curtailed by the £30 billion of tax giveaways in the last Budget—£30 billion that could have been spent more wisely. The incoherent policies continue with the flagship announcement of a £3.2 billion stamp duty giveaway that is now predicted to do no more than increase house prices and bring in nothing for the Treasury bung. While increasing the pay gap for the young, the Government think that they can woo young voters back with the promise of a railcard, but paragraph 4.46 suggests that it will be funded by other rail users rather than the Treasury. Tuition is free in Scotland, but the Tories think that freezing fees at £9,250 per annum will bring young voters flocking back to them. I say to them that they are aff their heids.
NATO North Atlantic Command — House of Commons, 2017-11-27
Topic: International Affairs
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I understand that that matter will be discussed in February next year, so let me just point out to the Secretary of State what Scotland has to offer. It is the most northerly nation not to have any territory inside the Arctic circle; it is in a strategic position, jutting out into NATO’s north Atlantic heartland with access to the Icelandic gap; and it has Kinloss and Lossiemouth with unparalleled history in maritime aviation. Given what my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) has also said, will the Secretary of State commit to further investigating the strong position that Scotland is in and taking that to NATO in February?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-11-27
Topic: Labor
Questions: Prince Harry has done tireless work to improve mental health support for our armed forces and veterans. Will the Minister update the House on what the Department is doing in that respect? Like all colleagues, I congratulate Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on their great news today.; The Secretary of State might be aware that in 2009 the terms of business agreement signed between the MOD and BAE Systems secured the future of complex naval shipbuilding in this country by ensuring a commitment to invest to create a shipbuilding infrastructure in the top quarter of all shipbuilding capabilities world wide. In the recently published national shipbuilding strategy, that commitment is no longer given. Will he confirm that the commitment in the terms of business agreement to creating a world-class shipbuilding industry remains?; I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his appointment. Will he confirm that he is committed to the development of the Dreadnought style of submarines, and reaffirm his commitment to ensuring that we retain our independent nuclear deterrent?; Britain’s defence industry supports hundreds of jobs in the South Wales valleys. Will the Government support our armoured fighting vehicle industry and allow it to compete for the prime contract for the Boxer armoured vehicle?; I was pleased to hear the Secretary of State express his steadfast support for NATO. What further steps will we be taking to support our NATO allies in Estonia in the face of increased Russian aggression?; Will the new Secretary of State get off to a better start than his predecessor by confirming that the new Royal Fleet Auxiliary orders will come to the Clyde, and that those vessels will not be built abroad?; Does the Secretary of State agree that as we leave the EU we must remain committed to all our European allies, and will he update the House on what we are doing through NATO to support our allies in Romania?; Last year it was announced that Royal Marines Base Chivenor, in my constituency, would be closing. The previous Secretary of State visited it subsequently, at my invitation, and announced a review of the decision. Will the Minister please update me on the progress of the review, and indicate when a final decision might be made?; Will my right hon. Friend provide an update on the work being done by British servicemen and women to train local forces in Afghanistan?
Douglas Chapman (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Secretary of State began today by outlining the three places that he had visited in the early days of his appointment, on which I congratulate him. What reassurances can he give to the workers at Rosyth that their contracts will be secure following the departure of the Queen Elizabeth class carriers, and will he visit Rosyth?
Forensic Evidence: Alleged Manipulation — House of Commons, 2017-11-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Carol Frances Monaghan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It is imperative that the public trust forensic science testing and, by extension, criminal and civil justice as a whole. There were warning signs about the firm’s predecessor, Trimega, which had seen children almost taken into care on the basis of erroneous evidence. That major mistake should have been a red flag to the Government, so why were they not alert to the risk presented by the Randox lab, given that its predecessor had such a poor record Does the Minister agree that the privatisation of vital elements of the justice system without proper oversight can lead to errors or deliberate tampering, and that the cost both to the individuals affected and to confidence in the justice system outweigh any money saved? Finally, what steps will he take to restore the public’s faith in forensic expert evidence and the justice system as a whole?
Industrial Strategy — House of Commons, 2017-11-27
Topic: Macroeconomics
Andrew Egan Henderson Hendry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of the statement We welcome, finally, this overdue industrial strategy. We welcome also the recognition of the grand challenges of artificial intelligence, clean growth, future mobility, and the ageing society—all of which are very important to Scotland. It therefore says everything that there has been no consultation with the Scottish Government nor any attempt to match the Scottish Government’s economic plan, particularly given that the Scottish Government lead in life sciences. How will that working with the Scottish Government be taken forward This is not an outcomes-based approach such as we have seen working successfully in Scotland. A plan without knowing its destination is just a plan, and it does not guarantee success. If it did, it would answer the big question on skills. The Secretary of State said that there was no point in having short-term strategy, but it has been pointed out, in terms of the Budget, that the training and learning budget fell by 13.6% per person in real terms between 2007 and 2015. With the uncertainty over Brexit already affecting EU nationals, perhaps he could tell industries where the skills that will be required in the short to medium term will come from While we welcome the £7 billion, which is a very big number, for productivity, why, according to the Red Book, does it apparently not come into effect until 2022? Do we not need to address productivity now?
Industrial Strategy — House of Commons, 2017-11-27
Topic: Transportation
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Secretary of State’s document rightly stresses the importance of transport infrastructure and digital infrastructure, yet when it comes to Scotland, his Government have just imposed a £600 million cut to the future rail investment programme and to date we have been underfunded in terms of superfast broadband. Will he confirm that Scotland’s funding from the £740 million digital infrastructure programme and the £400 million fund for electric vehicle charging will be allocated on need, which covers Scotland’s landmass and geography, and will not be based on arbitrary population or other measures?
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-11-27
Topic: International Affairs
Peter Grant (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I suspect that I have much more confidence in the world-class quality of the food and drink that is produced in Scotland than the hon. Gentleman. I do not believe that Scotch whisky really depends on the Foreign Secretary to become a world leader, and I do not believe that the world-class food and drink that we produce in Scotland really depends on gunboat diplomacy to make people throughout the world understand. What it does depend on is barrier-free access to markets, and it is a bit rich for those who support the removal of our barrier-free access to the biggest single market on the planet to claim to have a monopoly of wisdom about how to develop our international trade Let me say once again that I do not accept the argument that the sole purpose of foreign policy is to benefit wealthy investors and bankers in these islands. The most important part of the foreign policy of any developed and wealthy nation is to ensure that its wealth is distributed so that terrorist attacks such as the ones that we have seen in Egypt recently, and the starvation that takes the lives of thousands of children every day, become things of the past. If I have to pay a wee bit more income tax, or any other tax, to make that happen, I for one am more than happy to dip into my pocket.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-11-27
Topic: International Affairs
Peter Grant (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I entirely agree that it is more complicated than it is often presented as being. I have not said that Iran is entirely innocent, but Iran is not buying £2 billion-worth of weapons of war from the United Kingdom, and Saudi Arabia is. Saudi Arabia stands accused of war crimes. Until those allegations are investigated, I do not think that we should be selling weapons to those who may be committing crimes of mass murder, and I do not consider the question of whether or not they are using our weapons to commit those crimes to be relevant When I looked at the timetable for our Budget debate, I saw "Monday: global Britain", and thought, "That’s not going to take very long, is it?" The fact is that even the Government’s own misguided ambitions for Britain’s place in the world, which I believe are still based on the fanciful belief that we are somehow entitled to retain an empire and colonies, rather than a simple acknowledgement that the world has moved on since the days when any nation could claim the right to colonise any other nation—
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-11-27
Topic: International Affairs
Peter Grant (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): No. Time is short and I do not want any other hon. Members to miss a chance to speak. [Hon. Members: "Give way!"] If the hon. Gentleman has put his name down to speak, he will get the chance; if he has not, it is unfair on those who have done and who may have prepared speeches The debate so far confirms that the direction in which the Government intend to take all four of these nations is very different from the direction that the people of Scotland have made it clear that they want to take. The United Kingdom Government’s vision of their place in the world is very different from how the people of Scotland see our place in the world—I suspect it might be very different from how a lot of the ordinary people of England, Wales and Northern Ireland see their place as well. If the Government believe that Scotland has no option but to follow their lead and be dragged into fulfilling a role in the world that is not the one we want, they are making a mistake as monumental and momentous as any in the catalogue of disastrous misjudgements that we have seen by Ministers in this Government over the last two years.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-11-27
Topic: International Affairs
Peter Grant (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I do not remember saying that Britain does not have a role to play in the world. What I said, and I will say it again, is that the role in the world the UK Government appear to have decided for Britain is not a role that the people of Scotland will be comfortable following. Nobody would deny that any country in the world has a role to play. If the Official Report shows that I said anything different, I will withdraw it. [Interruption.]
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-11-27
Topic: Macroeconomics
Thomas Sheppard (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It never ceases to amaze me just how complacent many Government Ministers and those in the political leadership of this country appear to be with regard to addressing the underlying economic catastrophe that the country is facing. To paraphrase Kipling, "If you can keep your head when all around you are losing theirs, you probably don’t appreciate the seriousness of the situation." There is now an amazing disconnect between their arrogance and glibness—and in the case of the Foreign Secretary, bombast and pomposity as well—and the real economic facts on the ground that are shaping the lives of millions of citizens of this country. This is not so much about driverless cars as a driverless Government We look now at the global dimension of this Budget. The first thing we should consider is the image of this country in the world. What does this Budget say about our character? How will others judge us for it? How will they judge a country that now lies 31st of 34 OECD countries in the economic growth table? How will they judge a country where, by their own admission, the Government say that by 2022 real wages will not be back up to the level they were in 2008? There has been a decade and a half of wage stagnation in this country: a decade and a half of austerity, adversity and struggle for many working people in this country trying to make ends meet and seeing their own hopes and those of their kids dashed because they cannot do so.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-11-27
Topic: Macroeconomics
Thomas Sheppard (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Indeed I do. That was the third observation that I wanted to make about how people might see us—how we treat our own people Let us remember that this Budget does nothing to cancel the attacks on the poor that have been contained in the past few Budgets. We still have the bedroom tax. We still have the cuts to employment and support allowance. We still have, albeit with some mitigation, the roll-out of universal credit and the visiting of penury on the poorest and the most disabled in our country. Any country will rightly look at us and judge us according to how we treat those who are least able to defend themselves. When they look at the record of this Government, I think they will judge them harshly. Brexit clearly overshadows the whole debate about Britain in the global economy. I remind colleagues that we have not left the European Union. We have not even begun to leave the European Union. Indeed, we do not, as of today, yet have a plan to leave the European Union. All we have is a stated intention—the idea of Brexit, and already the idea of Brexit is having a material effect on the ground. I refer Members to page 14 of the Red Book, where paragraph 1.19 is a harbinger of what is to come. It points out that the drop in the projected growth in GDP is not just because of the per capita drop but because fewer people will be contributing to the economy due to a net drop in migration of 20,000 people. This is only the beginning. If we tell young people from Poland, Spain and Greece that they are not welcome to come and live and work here, not only will our public services be in jeopardy but we will not be able to collect their taxes, and that will have an economic effect on paying for those public services in the first place Already the European Medicines Agency and other institutions are leaving just because of the idea of Brexit. Not a mile away, across the City of London many financial organisations are preparing to make an exit and shift their European regional headquarters to another place. The effect of that will be dramatic, and it is irresponsible in the extreme for the Government of the day to come to the House and present a Budget that has no contingency whatsoever for those possibilities. The Government are planning for a series of options on Brexit, one of which is a hard Brexit with all the attendant tariff controls and trade barriers, and yet they have made no contingency for what might happen. That is the height of irresponsibility In the final 20 seconds, I want to mention the situation in Scotland. We welcomed the Government’s decision to scrap VAT for police and fire in Scotland, but if it was the right thing to do today, it was the right thing to do a year ago and the year before that. It is intellectual banality for the Government to base their policy on who makes the argument rather than the content of it.
Broadband: Scotland — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: International Affairs
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Scottish Tory Back Benchers have agreed that clause 11 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill is flawed and amounts to a power grab. Is the situation with broadband not the same, and is it not time that the Minister worked with the Scottish Government instead of trying to bypass them?
Broadband: Scotland — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Technology
Brendan O'Hara (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): In this the season of good will, will the Minister join me in congratulating the Scottish Government following last week’s announcement that, despite it being a reserved matter, they are to invest £600 million in rolling out 30 megabit superfast broadband across Scotland, with priority given to rural Scotland, thereby making Scotland a truly world-class digital nation by 2021?
Knife Crime — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Law and Crime
Gavin Andrew Stuart Newlands (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I wish a happy Christmas and a good new year to you and your family, Mr Speaker, and to Members and staff across the House Knife crime is still a big problem in Scotland, but of the 35 children and teenagers killed as a result of knife crime in the UK so far this year, none was in Scotland. Does the Solicitor General agree that in his and his Cabinet colleagues’ efforts to reduce knife crime, they would do well to look at the work of Police Scotland’s violence reduction unit, which has helped to oversee a 69% decline in the incidence of handling an offensive weapon in a decade?
Russian Interference in UK Politics — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen Patrick Gethins (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): As always, the hon. Gentleman has a fine recollection of the facts and makes an excellent point It is important to state that Russia is one of the most dangerous places on earth to be a journalist. It is worth putting on the record the extraordinary bravery of journalists going right back to those who covered the conflicts in Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia and North Ossetia, as well as over the border in the ongoing conflicts in South Ossetia, Abkhazia and of course Nagorno-Karabakh. Those areas do not often get debated because of everything else that is going on What is the solution to this problem? It is clear that our work with the EU has been very important. I hope that, regardless of where Members stand in the debate on leave or remain and where we sit in this Chamber, we will agree that the Minister must commit to continuing with our key partnerships with those organisations. The EU has a huge role to play. In terms of the development of the economy and the rule of law, we have done some extraordinary work with these organisations in Ukraine, the south Caucasus and elsewhere, and I hope the Minister will commit to continuing that I also pay tribute to the soft power that can be ongoing. We can do an extraordinary amount of work in cultural diplomacy, and I pay tribute to the British Council and others who are doing some fantastic work, including people who have worked for years in this area, such as Craig Oliphant—formerly of the FCO—Jonathan Cohen and Dennis Sammut. These are extraordinary people who have done extraordinary work in building our relations and understanding Finally, I say again that we must continue to work with the EU in stabilising and working with, and giving a carrot to, the countries that are threatened by the Russian Federation. The greatest threat to independence and sovereignty is not to the UK; it is often to the countries of the western Balkans, the Baltics and the south Caucasus.
Russian Interference in UK Politics — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen Patrick Gethins (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for his generosity in giving way. On that productive relationship and cultural exchanges—he may not be able to answer this question just now, but he can write to me or ask the Foreign Secretary to write to me—will he guarantee funding for organisations such as the British Council, which is doing remarkable work in places such as Russia?
Russian Interference in UK Politics — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Government Operations
Stephen Patrick Gethins (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I did not want to intervene again, but I feel obliged to do so. The Minister refers to a former Member of Parliament, but current Conservative Members are getting paid for appearances on RT. Does he think that that should be cracked down on?
Christmas Adjournment — House of Commons, 2017-12-21
Topic: Labor
Patrick John Grady (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): As my hon. Friend says, the jobcentre closures are affecting the whole city of Glasgow. Is he particularly concerned, as I am, that Ministers have not been very reassuring on whether this will be the last round of closures, and that there is a real risk that, further down the road, the city could lose even more of its jobcentre provision?