argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Terrorist Attacks (Paris) — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): The Home Office funding for Prevent has increased in recent years, but further money will be made available, as part of the £130 million that the Prime Minister announced in November, in 2014-15 and 2015-16. The majority of that will be for agencies, but other funding will be for the Home Office, including funding for Prevent. It will also include funding for counter-terrorism policing. Discussions are taking place on how it will be most appropriately spent.
Terrorist Attacks (Paris) — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Technology
Stephen Mosley (Conservative, Centre-right): Like a couple of earlier speakers, in 2012 I was a member of the Joint Committee considering the draft Communications Data Bill. The Committee supported the need for new legislation, but proposed a number of safeguards that we thought would improve the Bill. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that in any future legislation those safeguards would be considered and, hopefully, included?
Terrorist Attacks (Paris) — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): I am very happy to confirm that. The Joint Committee came back with a very well-considered and detailed response, and the Government were clear that we would take on board most of its recommendations. That continues to be my view as Home Secretary and as a Conservative politician looking at the prospect of a Conservative Government introducing that legislation.
Terrorist Attacks (Paris) — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): I believe that the NCA does play an important role. Obviously, its clear focus is on serious and organised crime, but it is also focused on economic crime, border crime, child exploitation and online protection. It is a valuable agency. In the operations it has undertaken, it has already shown the benefit of having set it up. I consider that it would be appropriate and beneficial if it were possible for the agency to operate in Northern Ireland, as it does in other parts of the United Kingdom.
Energy Prices — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Energy
Robert Henry Halfon (Conservative, Centre-right): Under this Government, fuel duty was not just frozen but cut, and the fuel escalator was got rid of. That means that in tax terms, the average motorist is better off by 20p every time they fill up the family car, amounting to hundreds of pounds a year. Given that this debate is about energy prices, why did the right hon. Lady and her party vote against all those measures?
Energy Prices — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Energy
Robert Henry Halfon (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Lady is being extraordinarily generous in giving way to me. She said that the energy companies are only reducing prices to new customers, but under the Government’s regulations they have to offer the cheapest tariff. I know that because I regularly get letters from EDF, my energy provider, not only offering me a cheaper tariff but informing me of the cheaper tariffs on offer from other companies.
Energy Prices — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Energy
Robert Henry Halfon (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for what he is saying, and for the fact that the Government have taken £50 off energy bills. Further to the point that was made earlier, will he look at the issue of direct debits? The millions of people who do not pay by direct debit face a premium on their energy bills. I know the Government are looking at this, but it seems incredibly unjust and they could address it in order to help keep bills down.
Energy Prices — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Energy
Brett Charles Anthony Elphicke (Conservative, Centre-right): It is important that we should test the credibility of the Opposition’s arguments against their record in government. To that end, will my right hon. Friend tell us what happened to gas prices and to fuel poverty under the last Labour Government?
Energy Prices — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Energy
Benedict Gummer (Conservative, Centre-right): Is my right hon. Friend aware that, even in opposition, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North is managing to increase bills for our constituents? The chief executive of E.ON has commented that the reason that prices have not fallen faster across the market is the threat of an energy price freeze from the incompetents on the Benches opposite.
Energy Prices — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Energy
Brett Charles Anthony Elphicke (Conservative, Centre-right): To underline that point, I switched from SSE and British Gas to a new dual-fuel supplier a couple of years ago and saved 25%. The Opposition should not sneer at switching, because it can make a dramatic difference to people’s bills.
Energy Prices — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Energy
Brett Charles Anthony Elphicke (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my right hon. Friend not agree that having that yo-yo system would massively impact on continuity of supply, because we would not be able to have long-term contracts to guarantee the delivery and supply of gas to this nation?
Energy Prices — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Energy
Timothy Stephen Kenneth Yeo (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain), but he will understand if I do not go down the path of his argument. He knows my views about the enormous cost of electricity generated from the Severn barrage, which were set out in the report of the Energy and Climate Change Committee, which I chair, a couple of years ago The Opposition’s proposed price freeze is one of those rare policies whose mere announcement causes even more harm than its implementation would do. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State comprehensively demolished the price freeze and its complete lack of intellectual coherence, which, incidentally, makes it astonishing that it is proposed by a former Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. I will not repeat the case against the price freeze, but simply emphasise that the only absolutely certain consequence of a freeze announced months in advance of its implementation would be to raise prices substantially above where they otherwise would be and to discourage, and possibly destroy the prospect of, much needed investment—two totally perverse outcomes that would substantially damage the interests of consumers Instead of repeating my right hon. Friend’s effective attack, I want to suggest four ways in which energy costs could be cut. We must focus on costs not prices. It is false for anyone to claim that Government can control energy prices when the biggest factor in determining those prices is totally outside their control, namely the wholesale price of gas The first way to cut energy bills is to pay more attention to transmission and distribution, the costs of which account for almost a fifth of the average bill. They are provided by largely unscrutinised monopolies, or quasi-monopolies. Distribution has been neglected, because most consumers do not have a clue who supplies the power to their homes. The tabloid media regularly attack the big six, whose names appear on the electricity bills, but they ignore the distribution companies, which face little or no competition—even less than the big six experience. For that reason, the distribution companies should face not less but more scrutiny from the regulator. Regrettably, in the past Ofgem has rather let them off the hook. However, I make it clear that I exempt the current team at Ofgem from that criticism. It is recently arrived and it has shown some signs of escaping the torpor that used to overcome its predecessors whenever there were signs that consumers were being ripped off Transmission is a natural monopoly, and National Grid does a reasonable job, but it, too, is far too leniently treated by Ofgem, and generously—perhaps over-generously—rewarded for running its monopolies. I hope that the Government will give top priority to bearing down on the costs of transmission and distribution.
Energy Prices — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Energy
Alan James Carter Duncan (Conservative, Centre-right): Populist posturing is a sick and cheap form of politics, and the motion pretends that if only Labour were elected, there is a quick and easy way of reducing energy prices. The Opposition are promising something that will not be delivered and they know it, and they are promising something which simply cannot be delivered in the way they say The policy of the Opposition is the worst conceivable combination of ignorance and deceit, and it labels them as ill equipped to look after the economy. Their ignorance of markets and their Canute-like pretence that they can control prices in the way they propose is pitiful in its fantasy and it is irresponsible. The Labour party is saying that the tide can go out, but that it has the power to stop it coming in Energy markets are complicated and multifaceted. None of them enjoys the direct, simple, linear relationship described in the Labour party’s policy and motion. Any such correlation is not the way of the real world. I have been involved on and off in the energy markets, principally in oil, for 35 years. Oil, gas and coal in their pricing are interrelated. They tend to move similarly. The only sector that enjoys a modicum of economic independence and segregation is nuclear, to which one might add, to a lesser extent, wind. But the dominant marker for these major providers of the source of energy, and hence utility bills, is oil. It determines in broad terms the cost of energy for power generation, heating and transport I started in the business over 30 years ago, and we now have the free market in oil that we did not use to have. When that changed, the nature of pricing also changed. Our own North sea oil Brent became a marker crude for contract pricing, so instead of fixed prices—30 bucks for everybody, going from one company all the way through that company to the end—we got a free market. That market means that here we are in January, but Brent crude is priced for March and April, and if it is a barrel of oil it has to be shipped and refined, so it takes time—perhaps four months—for prices to work their way through from the wellhead to the pump.
Energy Prices — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Energy
Alan James Carter Duncan (Conservative, Centre-right): I totally agree with the Prime Minister. What we want is a competitive market—I agree with him—not the control of prices by a regulator, whom the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) seems to want to be able to write every commercial contract throughout the industry Let me say to the right hon. Lady that in the case of gas, the stupidity of the motion is that there is no such thing as a straightforward wholesale price. When I put my question to her, she lamentably failed to answer it. There is no such thing as a straightforward wholesale price whose movement should be fully and simply reflected like that in retail prices. That is the fantasy and the ignorance of this proposal, because life is more complicated Let us take gas contracts. Some gas contracts have pricing formulae which do not simply follow the headline daily market price. They may be based on various averages or regional weightings. They may have locked themselves into a one-year or a six-month fixed price. They may face maximum and minimum parameters. Their costs may have been hedged to eliminate the risk of massive fluctuations and guard against another idiotic policy from the Labour party. This is a complicated business, within which suppliers and generators may be locked into various different pricing structures, so the idea that a regulator can suddenly say, "Oh, there’s the wholesale price, therefore there is the retail price," is total lunacy and ignorance, of which the right hon. Lady should be ashamed Even if there were some sort of unshackled easy link to daily prices, the Opposition do not understand the distinction between price and volume. The price might fall in a so-called wholesale market, but if there is no business of any volume in the market, how can that price, as a tiny example of one day’s price, then be used as the determinant of retail prices under the right hon. Lady’s policy? This is folly of such total lunacy and ignorance that I am ashamed that anyone in this Chamber should want to stand up and pretend that it makes any logical, decent sense Labour Members started by proposing a freeze—it then became a cap, although they have got very muddled, but the leader of the Labour party called it a freeze—after which all the companies’ share prices fell and their pricing policies had to change to guard against this idiocy. Labour’s policy announcement hit share prices and utilities and was detrimental to the consumer, and its cost of living campaign is in shreds The clear point in this debate is that we have a regulator to oversee and police the dangers of collusion and uncompetitive conduct. That is where we should all agree, and that is where the influence of Government should lie. It is foolhardy for the right hon. Lady to pretend like King Canute, or rather Queen Canute, that she can stop the natural movement of prices. It is deceit and delusion of which Labour Members should consider themselves ashamed.
Energy Prices — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Energy
Alec Shelbrooke (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery). I agree with him that there has been, and is, an issue about the cost of energy for people’s homes, but I disagree with him about what we do about that. We need to ensure that we can get the best prices passed down to the consumer, not only in the short term but the long term. The Government have brought in measures to get rid of the tariffs that were adding unnecessary taxes to energy bills, increase the number of independent suppliers threefold, and reduce the 400 similar tariffs that existed to just a few. Those are all going towards protecting the consumer and getting prices down The hon. Gentleman is right that the cost of energy is a large proportion of the cost of living and the money that goes out of people’s homes. However, it is wrong to offer people the false hope that through just a simple black-and-white policy they will see their energy prices reduced. For the past two or three years, the Labour party has run campaigns in my constituency, and in many other constituencies, trumpeting Labour’s price freeze. There was a great big inflatable ice cube on the high street, which, I hasten to add, did not have an image of a cap on top of it. The Labour party put out leaflets in my constituency saying, "People tell me on the doorstep that they want an energy price freeze." Of course people want an energy price freeze, but what they are telling me on the doorstep is that they want the lowest possible energy prices. If we had had that freeze, the price would have been stuck at that level. Now, at the very last minute, Labour is changing its policy around. Whatever words are used in points of order or in the debate by the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), the fact is that people’s perception of what has been said to them on the doorstep is that there would be a price freeze. Indeed, this very lunch time the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) said on television that it is not a cap, but a price freeze.
Energy Prices — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Energy
David Thomas Charles Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): My colleagues have done a very good job of rubbishing the economics behind this ludicrous Labour policy. I do not need to add much, except to say that we have heard some deprecating comments about shareholders. Opposition Members tend to forget that shareholders are not toffs walking around the City in top hats. Shareholders are millions and millions of ordinary working people who do not have the luxury of a public sector pension. Private sector pension funds rely heavily on companies, including energy companies, to ensure that working people have decent and fair pensions at the end of their working lives. It is about time that Opposition Members realised that shareholders are millions of ordinary people I welcome this debate—I really and truly do—because although what the Opposition are suggesting is ludicrous, it is very interesting that the shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change has chosen to use her Opposition day debate to talk all about energy and to forget all about climate change. She has realised one thing that I could have told her and some Government Members many years ago, which is that people are far more worried about rising energy bills than about so-called global warming I should declare an interest at this point, because I do not buy the consensus at all. Unfortunately, I do not have time to point out the obvious flaws in the argument, but suffice it to say that even those who buy the idea, hook, line and sinker, that the climate only started changing 200 years ago—actually, what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says is very different from what the environmentalists say—must surely be aware that the UK emits only 2% of the world’s carbon emissions. Therefore, the policies that we have implemented, which have pushed up energy prices, are having no impact whatsoever on the climate, and it is about time that we threw them overboard If Members of all parties are interested in reducing energy bills—I hope they are, because I certainly am—they need to look at the fundamental point of how much that energy costs to produce. I have recently seen figures that suggest, and I think at least one Member who is present will correct me if I am wrong, that it costs about £20 per megawatt-hour to generate our electricity from coal, about £40 per megawatt-hour to do so from gas, about £95 per megawatt-hour with subsidies to do so from nuclear or onshore wind and a lot more to do so from offshore wind and other renewables. It is a fundamental economic fact that if we want to reduce electricity prices, we need to ensure that as much electricity as possible is generated from coal and gas, not from expensive renewables. That is one sure fire way to bring prices down.
Energy Prices — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Energy
Christopher John Pincher (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) on the élan, and not a little brass neck, with which she outlined her case. There is no disguising the fact, try as she might, that Labour’s energy policy is in chaos. If she takes the trouble to read her leader’s speech at the party conference—the one that the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) wrote down and therefore remembered—she will see that he said time after time after time that he would introduce an energy price freeze: never a mention of a cap and never a mention of prices going down, only a price freeze. It was only after Labour realised it made that schoolboy error that it morphed its policy into a price cap. It now seems to have transmuted even further. It is a policy in chaos Does it matter that Labour’s policy is in chaos? Yes it does. Tony Cocker, the chief executive of E.ON, a company the right hon. Lady praised a short time ago, said in evidence to the Energy and Climate Change Committee that every time the Leader of the Opposition opens his mouth the cost of its capital goes up. Whatever we may think of the big six, we need those companies to invest in our energy infrastructure. In the past five years, each of the big six has invested about £5 billion. We all accept, even the right hon. Lady does not demur, that we need to invest about £110 billion in the next 10 years in our infrastructure—the pipes, pylons and the power stations—to keep the lights switched on. At the current rate of spend, the big six are going to invest about £70 billion only, which is an investment gap of £40 billion. Unless we can encourage those firms and others to invest more, the shortfall will have to be made up by the consumer through higher bills or the taxpayer in higher taxes, or we will have to borrow the money, meaning that market interest rates may go up and everyone’s mortgages go up as well The Labour party’s proposal has a very real negative effect on people’s energy prices and on their lives. Just at the time when we are discouraging investment from the big six, Labour’s proposal will entrench their position. As Ovo Energy and First Utility—the provider of choice for the Leader of the Opposition—have said, the proposal for a price freeze will drive them out of the marketplace. It will reduce competition, so there will be even fewer companies to invest and fewer companies to buy energy from. The best, simplest and right approach to deal with the cost of energy for our constituents is to reduce the confusing array of tariffs that have discouraged people from switching.
Energy Prices — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Energy
Christopher John Pincher (Conservative, Centre-right): I will not give way. I will let the hon. Gentleman make his speech later on, if he so wishes. The best and simplest proposals to reduce energy prices are to reduce tariffs so that people know what the prices are; put people on the lowest tariff that is best for them; and roll back green levies, which will save in total £250 to £300 a year for our constituents. They are not an ill-conceived sham, which is what Labour’s proposal is. Labour’s proposal is no way to run an energy policy and no way to run a Government.
Energy Prices — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Energy
Brett Charles Anthony Elphicke (Conservative, Centre-right): The longer this debate goes on, the clearer one can see why, under Labour, gas bills doubled, electricity bills went up by 15% and fuel poverty trebled. Labour Members like to talk the game when it comes to lower prices, populism and easy answers, but the reality, as we saw when they were in office, is that their measures are ineffective and often counter-productive Let us take their current price freeze idea. If Labour’s policy had been implemented when it was announced, energy consumers would have lost out. Today’s consumers are better off with the Conservative/coalition policy that has been pursued. It is clear that Labour sources realise this and provide quotes that admit it. A Labour source spoke to The Sun and "Mail Online", so let me acquaint Labour Members with this for their better understanding of their own policy. This Labour source said, and Labour Members should listen carefully: "The freeze was announced at a time when energy prices were rising inexorably—nobody was talking about prices coming down, or even thinking about it. Obviously, if bills are coming down at the election there may have to be a bit of rebranding to make it clear it will operate as a price cap instead." What we are seeing, and what this debate is all about, is the screeching of brakes and the squeal of tyres as the Labour bandwagon puts into effect another mad U-turn that is ill thought out and entirely chaotic, as the freeze is rebranded as a cap to take advantage of the reality that petrol, fuel and energy prices are now falling.
Energy Prices — House of Commons, 2015-01-14
Topic: Energy
Brett Charles Anthony Elphicke (Conservative, Centre-right): I am proud that this Government have rolled back the green levies by £50, and I note that, not so long ago, the shadow Secretary of State was talking about green taxes as being "only" £113. I note, too, that the Leader of the Opposition wants to increase green levies and put more greenery in our electricity bills, driving up the cost of power. We know that the Opposition have set out that policy and that we have taken action to safeguard the interests and position of consumers. [Interruption.] If the shadow Secretary of State wants to make an intervention, I would welcome it.