argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Commons, 2021-12-07
Topic: International Affairs
Mathew Richard Allen Rodda (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. Does he agree that at the core of this is the poor quality of our relations with some of our nearest neighbours, and, indeed, our falling standing in the international community, which I am afraid—[Interruption.] If I may finish, I am afraid that that is a result of Government policy over the Brexit deal and a number of other matters. Does he agree with me on that point?
Support for Offenders’ Families — House of Commons, 2021-12-07
Topic: Law and Crime
Kerry Gillian McCarthy (Labour, Centre-left): I am pleased that the right hon. Gentleman has secured this debate, and I hope he got my email earlier Over the summer I visited the excellent project Children Heard and Seen, which is campaigning for prisoners’ families. I met a woman who, along with her children, had basically been driven from their home, because the husband had been arrested and imprisoned for an offence similar to the one the right hon. Gentleman is talking about. They were driven from their home and had to change their names. She had to stop her postgraduate studies because her computer had been taken away. The repercussions went on and on and on. One thing I have been calling for is a statutory mechanism so that children caught up in such a situation are recognised, identified by the system, and get the help they need straightaway. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with me?
Speaker’s Statement — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: Government Operations
Lindsay Harvey Hoyle (Labour, Centre-left): I must inform the House that Yvette Cooper has written to me giving notice of her wish to resign from the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. I therefore declare the Chair vacant The following arrangements will be in place for electing a new Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. Nominations should be submitted in the Lower Table Office—located in the Reference Room of the Library—or the Public Bill Office by 12 noon on Tuesday 14 December. Nomination forms are available from the Vote Office and the Table Office Following the House’s decision of 16 January 2020, only Members of the Labour party may be candidates in this election. If there is more than one candidate, the ballot will take place on Wednesday 15 December from 10 am to 1.30 pm in Committee Room 15. A briefing note with more details about the election will be made available to Members in the Vote Office and on the intranet.
COP27: Finance for Loss and Damage — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: Environment
Matthew Thomas Pennycook (Labour, Centre-left): Whether it is progress in relation to a dedicated loss and damage funding facility, efforts to raise ambition when it comes to national climate commitments, or delivering on climate finance and adaptation pledges, implementing the Glasgow agreement will require the work of our COP presidency not only to be sustained but to be enhanced over the next 11 months. Can the President therefore confirm today that the COP26 unit will be fully funded to deliver on all the work programmes mandated in the Glasgow agreement, and that the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero will continue to receive support from the Treasury throughout the remainder of the UK presidency?
Civil Society and Youth Groups — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: International Affairs
Valerie Carol Marian Vaz (Labour, Centre-left): I also pay tribute to the President of COP26 for the incredible work that he did. Has he had any discussions with the Egyptian Government about whether civil society groups can attend the fringe meetings, including very important people such as David Attenborough and Greta Thunberg, and also first nations around the world that maybe did not have a seat at the table?
Outcome of COP26 — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: Environment
Paul Christopher Blomfield (Labour, Centre-left): Following that point, one of the positive outcomes of COP26 was the agreement for countries to revise their emissions targets next year. Will the President explain exactly what he will do over the next 12 months to ensure we get the breakthrough we need at COP27, not only to keep 1.5° alive, but to achieve it?
Outcome of COP26 — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: Environment
Clive Stanley Efford (Labour, Centre-left): No one doubts the Secretary of State’s commitment to delivering on climate change, but can he say what he intends to do over the next 12 months? The pledges that were made at COP26 must have been alarming to him, because with current pledges we are way off delivering on 1.5°, and the achievements that countries will make by 2030 will be way off target. What will he do to step up his activities as president for the next year to ensure that we get back on target to keep 1.5° alive?
Outcome of COP26 — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: Energy
Edward Samuel Miliband (Labour, Centre-left): I know I am shadowing the Department that the right hon. Gentleman would quite like to run, so perhaps that announcement will be forthcoming in the future. I am mildly encouraged by what he says on Australia Let me take two other issues where he can show leadership: the Cumbria coalmine, and the Cambo oilfield, which are the equivalent of 18 coal-fired power stations running for a year. He knows that we need to get others to phase out coal, and that we need to phase out fossil fuels. Surely the right way to send a proper signal to the rest of the world ahead of COP27, is for the whole Government to start practising what he is effectively preaching, and put a stop to Cambo and Cumbria.
Limiting Global Heating — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: Environment
Questions: What recent assessment he has made of progress towards the globally agreed aim of limiting global heating to well below 2° C and pursuing efforts to limit heating to 1.5° C above pre-industrial levels.; What recent assessment he has made of progress towards the globally agreed aim of limiting global heating to well below 2° C and pursuing efforts to limit heating to 1.5° C above pre-industrial levels.
Anna Rhiannon McMorrin (Labour, Centre-left): COP26 agreed that the Paris climate agreement must now be implemented to keep global warming below 1.5°, but it has been revealed that the UK has emitted around 50 million tonnes of carbon in the past five years from collapsing peatlands alone. I asked the Minister this last time, and I ask him again: where is the climate leadership in this Government’s allowing two thirds of UK peatlands to be burned while the world is on fire?
Limiting Global Heating — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: Environment
Questions: What recent assessment he has made of progress towards the globally agreed aim of limiting global heating to well below 2° C and pursuing efforts to limit heating to 1.5° C above pre-industrial levels.; What recent assessment he has made of progress towards the globally agreed aim of limiting global heating to well below 2° C and pursuing efforts to limit heating to 1.5° C above pre-industrial levels.
Clive Anthony Lewis (Labour, Centre-left): We know the oil of Cambo and the coal of Cumbria have to stay in the ground if we are to keep temperature rises at below 2.4°C. I say 2.4°C because that is the new reality after this year’s COP26. Will the COP President commit to stopping Cambo and the new coalmine in Cumbria, and end the climate hypocrisy that so undermined his presidency at COP26?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: Government Operations
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): It is no wonder that so many Tory donors paid so much for that wallpaper last year—the Prime Minister probably told them he was building a new flat. It is the same old story from this Prime Minister, week in, week out: defending the indefensible, and broken promises. His mates were found to be corrupt; he tried to get them off the hook. Downing Street throws parties during lockdown; he says it is not a problem. He promised that there would be no tax rises, then he put up tax. He promised that there would be a rail revolution in the north, then he cancelled the trains. He promised that no one would have to sell their home for care, then along came his working-class dementia tax. He promised 40 new hospitals, but even if we count the paint jobs, his own watchdog says he cannot deliver it. Is it not the truth that any promises from this Prime Minister are not worth the manifesto paper they are written on?
Storm Arwen — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: Energy
Mary Elizabeth Twist (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Secretary of State for the statement, but in my constituency, pockets of people remain without energy, including in Ryton, Blaydon, Wylam—the part that is in my constituency—Victoria Garesfield, Coalburns and Byermoor. Six days on, all those places are still without energy and people are anxious and finding it extremely difficult to get through to find out information. Will he assure me that Members of Parliament will have direct lines and contacts so that we can get detailed information to tell our constituents? I thank the workers who have been out there in all weathers trying to reconnect people.
Storm Arwen — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: Energy
Mary Kelly Foy (Labour, Centre-left): Some of my constituents in places such as Sherburn Hill, Waterhouses, Bearpark and Low Burnhall are facing a full seven days without heating or electricity. This is a national scandal. I thank the emergency services, the workers, the engineers and all the community groups who have stepped up to help those most in need, but what are the Government doing to help the most vulnerable residents in Durham to get the help that they need—not tomorrow, not next week, but today?
Adult Social Care — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: Social Welfare
Helen Elizabeth Hayes (Labour, Centre-left): It has been two and a half years since the Prime Minister stood on the steps of Downing Street and promised to "fix the crisis in social care once and for all with a clear plan we have prepared" I think we can all be forgiven for asking what on earth the Government have been doing during that two and a half years—a time when the social care crisis has got worse. Right now, more than 100,000 vacancies exist in adult social care. Care homes are refusing new admissions because of staff shortages. Providers are haemorrhaging staff to better-paid roles in hospitality, retail and distribution. The sector is on its knees as we head into the harshest winter in living memory. The Minister’s statement today was completely tone-deaf on the scale of the crisis. Can she say, because it was not clear from the statement, how she expects the sector to get through the winter? What does she have to say to the families who are waiting right now for a care home place that simply does not exist under her Government’s failing social care system?
Adult Social Care — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: Social Welfare
Barbara Mary Keeley (Labour, Centre-left): Social care is a vital service that has been in crisis for a decade. What we need is reforms to bridge the funding gap so that unmet needs can be met and more care packages can be delivered; a dramatic improvement in pay and conditions for care staff, to halt the exodus out of care work; and decent support for the 11 million unpaid carers who have done so much extra caring during the pandemic. Sadly, what the Minister has announced falls far short of what is needed. Does she actually believe that these half-hearted measures in any way match up to what the care sector needs to survive?
Adult Social Care — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: Social Welfare
John Martin McDonnell (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister has talked about a 10-year vision, but most unpaid carers are just trying to see how they can get through the next week, or the week after that, or the week after that. As has already been pointed out, there are 11 million unpaid carers in the country, many of whom depend entirely on carer’s allowance, a legacy benefit. They never gained the additional £20 of universal credit, and they are living in poverty. What is there in this strategy that will assist unpaid carers and lift them out of poverty?
Adult Social Care — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: Social Welfare
Mary Elizabeth Twist (Labour, Centre-left): Our social care staff, whether they work in residential care homes or in people’s own homes, are at the heart of a real change in social care. The Minister has talked about some improvements, but does she accept that improving the pay and terms of employment of those staff is crucial to fixing the problem? What steps will she take to ensure that that is dealt with quickly?
Adult Social Care — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: Social Welfare
John Derek Twigg (Labour, Centre-left): It is disappointing that the Minister does not take seriously our genuine concerns about the crisis in social care. She will have received a copy of the letter sent to MPs recently from the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services. Why does she believe that it said that, in its professional judgment, these measures as they stand "will not fix the crisis in social care"?
Adult Social Care — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: Social Welfare
Paul Christopher Blomfield (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister was right in the way she described the crisis in social care. We have residential and domiciliary provision that falls chronically short of what is needed, care staff who are undervalued and grossly underpaid, and an army of unpaid carers—particularly young carers—who do not have the support they deserve. The problem is that what she has announced does not address any of that. It is frankly extraordinary that she says that this is the product of years of work. Where is the substance? As questions from both sides of the House have recognised, does today’s statement not show that when the Prime Minister promised a plan to fix social care, all he ever had in mind was an asset protection scheme for the wealthier, paid for by the many who would never benefit from it?
Adult Social Care — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: Social Welfare
Mohammad Yasin (Labour, Centre-left): With 100,000 vacancies in the social care sector, the Future Social Care Coalition has made it clear that failure to act immediately on care workers’ wages will have devastating consequences for the NHS, for the elderly and for other people who are in desperate need of care. Will the Government listen to the sector’s warning that the current and forthcoming hourly rates for care staff are insufficient to retain or recruit staff?
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: Government Operations
Anneliese Jane Dodds (Labour, Centre-left): On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Yesterday the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) intervened on me to "set the record straight" on whether one of his constituents secured a contract from the Government related to the covid-19 pandemic. He said that claims of such a contract were "a fabrication pushed by the Labour party—it is a load of rubbish."—[Official Report, 30 November 2021; Vol. 704, c. 851.] Yet today the Good Law Project published evidence indicating that a company called Alpha Laboratories won a contract worth more than £40 million from the Department of Health and Social Care in December 2020, and that this company appears to have subcontracted all the manufacturing of goods to another company, Hinpack Ltd, which appears to be run by his constituent Madam Deputy Speaker, I seek your guidance on whether the right hon. Gentleman should return to the House to set the record straight by withdrawing the comments he made yesterday.
Points of Order — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: Energy
Grahame Mark Morris (Labour, Centre-left): On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wonder whether I might seek your advice. This is relevant to the previous statement. The hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) mentioned yesterday that he understood that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy offered military assistance to Northern Powergrid, but the offer was refused. Northern Powergrid has stated that no such offer of support was made. Although we may all be critical of the Government and some aspects of Northern Powergrid’s response to Storm Arwen, I know that the hon. Gentleman is an honourable person and he would not want to have inadvertently misled the House and the public as to what support has or has not been offered by the Government. I have, as suggested, given him notice of this point of order, but can you advise how the record could be corrected? Is it possible to give the hon. Member, who, unfortunately, is not in the Chamber at the moment, the opportunity to correct the record?
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Margaret Eve Hodge (Labour, Centre-left): I find the Minister’s introduction quite extraordinary, given that money laundering, fraud and economic crime are on the rise even on the National Crime Agency’s own figures. Has she had regard to the revelations in, most recently, the Pandora papers or the FinCEN papers, where it is seen that Britain, more than any other jurisdiction, is at the heart of economic crime, fraud, corruption and money laundering?
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: Macroeconomics
Margaret Eve Hodge (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome these attempts to secure responsible behaviour on the part of promoters. Does the Minister agree on the issue of personal services companies, which are being used now in a way that Parliament never intended? We always wanted plumbers to set up new businesses, but we did not want MPs to use personal services companies to avoid tax. Does she agree that it would be appropriate for HMRC to bear down on the abuse of personal services companies? Will she be bringing forward further legislation to ensure certainly that MPs do not take advantage of what has become a tax avoidance scheme?
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Margaret Eve Hodge (Labour, Centre-left): I will speak to new clause 15, which stands in my name and those of right hon. and hon. Members from across the House, and I rise in support of new clause 5, which was moved so eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (James Murray). New clause 15 is complementary to the first part of new clause 5 I shall start by making a general observation. It seemed to me, when the Minister spoke, that either she does not completely understand what is going on in the world of economic crime, particularly in relation to the UK’s position on that; or there is a deliberate attempt by the Government to downplay it so that they do not take the very necessary action that is available and, as SNP Members and the Labour Front Benchers said, is probably as oven-ready as any legislation that we have. The Government are simply choosing not to implement it I will give an example of how the impact of economic crime is filtering and seeping into our politics. There are two Russian kleptocrats, Viktor Fedotov and Alexander Temerko—both of whom have questionable backgrounds and whose money has questionable origins—who are involved in a company called Aquind, which is trying to build an energy cable from Portsmouth to France. It is a controversial proposal. As for the origins of the money that they are using to fund this project, for me, it is money that has probably been stolen from the Russian people. That is really where that money comes from What is particularly disturbing is that when we look at the accounts of Aquind, the company, and the donations being given by one of the individuals, Alexander Temerko —the other one hides himself—to Conservative parties and to Conservative Members of this House, we see that it is enormous. There is a bit of time this afternoon so I am going to take the liberty of reading through the list. The right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt) has received money on a number of occasions from Aquind. The right hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) has received money from Aquind of Russian origin. The hon. Member—
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: Macroeconomics
Margaret Eve Hodge (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you, Dame Rosie; I have not, because I did not realise that there would be so few people in the House this afternoon that I would have the opportunity to do so What I can say is that 24 Members of Parliament—all of them Conservative Members, many of them Front-Bench Members, some of them with ministerial positions—have received money from Aquind or from Alexander Temerko. I can also tell the House that further parties have received such money and that some former MPs and local parties have received money. I hope that is in order, and thank you for correcting me, Dame Rosie. The impact of economic crime and economic activity on our politics is a worrying trend that has been growing exponentially over recent years.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: International Affairs
Barry John Sheerman (Labour, Centre-left): I am listening with rapt attention to my right hon. Friend’s remarks. Does she not think it strange that there is a Member of the House of Lords with very close connections to Russia—indeed, he is a Lord of Hampton and of Siberia—but we never hear from him and he is never seen? Whatever the story is of great interest in Russia, he is never on the media in this country.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-12-01
Topic: Energy
James Stewart Murray (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you, Mr Evans, for the opportunity to respond on behalf of the Opposition to the clauses selected for this debate on particular aspects of the operation of VAT. As the scope of these clauses is quite limited, I suspect that you will not allow me to speak in detail about our call on the Government immediately to cut VAT to zero on domestic energy bills.