argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
International Syria Support Group: Airdrops — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: International Affairs
David Roy Lidington (Conservative, Centre-right): Russia is the key player in terms of influence over Assad and, of course, the key sponsor of Syria’s military capability. We use every opportunity, both within the ISSG, of which Russia is a full member, and in other diplomatic exchanges with Russia at official and ministerial level, to emphasise the importance of Russia delivering on the commitments she has made.
International Syria Support Group: Airdrops — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: International Affairs
David Roy Lidington (Conservative, Centre-right): It is the United Nations that is talking to the Assad regime about getting access, the United Nations that has the good offices to make those approaches, and the United Nations that is in charge of delivering the humanitarian assistance. That is the way forward that we judge at the moment is most likely to lead to a successful outcome that is safe for those receiving the aid and those delivering it There are parts of Syria where high-level airdrops of humanitarian assistance might be of help if we could not get overland access, but that is not a precise way of giving help. There are other parts of Syria where the nature of the conflict, or the densely populated urban character of the communities we are trying to help, means that we would have to bring in helicopters and could not rely on high-level airdrops at all. That again emphasises the complexity of the task and why the best outcome, for all its imperfections, would be the UN securing access, with the agreement of the regime, either over land or, failing that, for airborne assistance.
International Syria Support Group: Airdrops — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: International Affairs
David Roy Lidington (Conservative, Centre-right): As my hon. Friend knows, we have committed very large sums—£2.3 million—to humanitarian assistance in the crisis in Syria and its neighbouring countries. We are ready to provide additional support, if the UN wants it, for an expanded airdrop operation in the besieged areas.
International Syria Support Group: Airdrops — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: International Affairs
David Roy Lidington (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the importance of this. After all, people in the camps moved across the Aegean last summer because the United Nations was not getting sufficient funds to maintain either food rations or hours of schooling at previously agreed levels. We are certainly committed, and we are pressing all the countries and international organisations that, at the recent London conference on Syria, committed themselves to spending more to deliver on those pledges fully and promptly We welcome the opposition High Negotiations Committee’s suggestion that there be a Ramadan truce inside Syria. We hope that that might be an opportunity to stop further bloodshed.
International Syria Support Group: Airdrops — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: International Affairs
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): It is depressing that starvation is again being used as a weapon of war, particularly when one man, President Putin, could make one phone call to his friend, President Assad, to remove many of the barriers to international aid. Assuming that the UN gets permission to deliver international aid, have we offered the use of British military bases, particularly those in Cyprus, to allow that delivery to happen quickly?
International Syria Support Group: Airdrops — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: International Affairs
David Roy Lidington (Conservative, Centre-right): We have not been asked to provide that kind of assistance to the UN. Obviously, we would consider any request that we received from the UN seriously and sympathetically, but my understanding is that the UN would prefer to use civilian airports, because that would emphasise to all parties the humanitarian, rather than political, nature of the flights.
International Syria Support Group: Airdrops — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: International Affairs
David Roy Lidington (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not know whether there has been a recent conversation with Assad’s father-in-law, but I will ensure that that point is noted in the Foreign Office, and will perhaps write to the right hon. Lady.
International Syria Support Group: Airdrops — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: International Affairs
Mary Josephine Robinson (Conservative, Centre-right): The UN said on Thursday that helicopters would have to be used as air bridges in 15 of the 19 besieged areas because they are densely populated. In reality, the UN, working with the World Food Programme, would use helicopters, which need permission to land. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that means that it is vital to use diplomatic channels to urge Russia to insist that Syria open up those channels?
International Syria Support Group: Airdrops — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: International Affairs
David Roy Lidington (Conservative, Centre-right): The first objective must be to secure humanitarian assistance to those who are in desperate need. Then we need to achieve a strategy for a political settlement in Syria. When that is in place, there will indeed need to be a time when individuals who are responsible for the most appalling crimes can be held to account.
International Syria Support Group: Airdrops — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Louis David Fabricant (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend makes important points, and I am pleased that I agree with everything he says—not something I have usually done of late when he has been at the Dispatch Box. Will he join me in praising the work of our former colleague, Stephen O’Brien, who is now the United Nations emergency relief co-ordinator in this area?
International Syria Support Group: Airdrops — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: International Affairs
David Roy Lidington (Conservative, Centre-right): I am very happy to do so. Stephen was a good friend of mine when he was a Member of the House, and while he served here he had a sincere and enduring commitment to international development and humanitarian assistance. He is showing real dynamism and leadership in his work on behalf of the UN.
International Syria Support Group: Airdrops — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: International Affairs
David Roy Lidington (Conservative, Centre-right): In terms of this urgent question, the key objective must surely be to find the means by which we can get humanitarian aid to those who need it as quickly and effectively as we can; I hope that we can all agree on that point.
International Syria Support Group: Airdrops — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: International Affairs
Huw William Merriman (Conservative, Centre-right): The question of what Russia can do has already been raised. Can the Minister provide examples of what the Russians may have done so far, or give any positive news, that would suggest that they may be about to change their approach?
International Syria Support Group: Airdrops — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: International Affairs
David Roy Lidington (Conservative, Centre-right): I would like to be more encouraging in my response, but so far the Russian approach has been frankly disappointing. The United Nations has been allowed access to help people who are besieged by Daesh forces, but those people are loyal to the Assad regime, so the Russians and the regime have been happy to allow that humanitarian assistance. A real test of Russia’s intentions is whether it will bring to bear the pressure that it could on Assad to act before the people we are talking about suffer further.
International Syria Support Group: Airdrops — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: International Affairs
David Roy Lidington (Conservative, Centre-right): The Department for International Development is in regular contact with those organisations, as is the United Nations, which has long-standing relationships with all international humanitarian non-governmental organisations. As the hon. Gentleman will know, a large proportion of the British Government’s aid assistance to humanitarian causes in Syria and the surrounding states is channelled through precisely the organisations he has listed.
International Syria Support Group: Airdrops — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: International Affairs
David Roy Lidington (Conservative, Centre-right): One must take into account the military realities on the ground. We are talking about a regime in Syria that is besieging most of the communities whose plight we are discussing. The regime has formidable air defences of its own, and Russia has deployed its own air defence measures inside Syrian territory. For that reason, we believe that the safest and most effective means of providing humanitarian access would still be for the UN to agree terms under which that aid can be delivered. If that proves not to work, we must return to this issue, as I have indicated.
International Syria Support Group: Airdrops — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: International Affairs
David Roy Lidington (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes. It was my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary who pressed at the previous ISSG meeting for airdrops to be considered as a last resort, and if we cannot secure the access that the UN, with our support, is seeking, we will have to return to that possibility
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Technology
Bernard Christison Jenkin (Conservative, Centre-right): Have the Government made any inquiries, assessment or technical analysis of whether there is any possibility that some malevolent attack was made on the website at that time, as opposed to there being an incredibly unusual spike in the numbers?
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Technology
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend will very much recognise that I am not a technical expert on computing, but I am advised by those in the Cabinet Office and the Government Digital Service that, as far as they can make out, there was no untoward event whatsoever. There was simply an incapacity of the system to handle that number of applications. The system is designed to be scoped to deal with a certain number of simultaneous events, and that number was exceeded during that period, so in retrospect, it was not surprising that it fell over. I should add that since that time, as the very first lesson learned, the website has been altered so that it has a larger capacity—I think almost twice as much capacity—to be able to deal with a higher number of simultaneous events than previously.
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Government Operations
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman for the fact that the Electoral Commission in Northern Ireland did indeed issue a statement of the kind he describes. I do not know quite why it was issued, but that body is of course independent of us. As I think he is entirely aware, discussions went on yesterday about whether this should or should not include Northern Ireland. The answer to his question is the answer that he himself indicated: there is not an online system in Northern Ireland, and therefore the thing we are correcting did not go wrong in Northern Ireland. He would need to discuss with my colleagues in the Norther Ireland Office whether it would have been sensible nevertheless to extend this, but their view was that it would not be.
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Government Operations
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): The answer to that is yes. The way in which the system in Great Britain operates, unlike that in Northern Ireland, is that all the paper goes into the online system at a later stage. The whole thing here has been delayed by two days.
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Government Operations
Oliver Letwin (Conservative, Centre-right): There are two separate issues here. There is the question whether this statutory instrument has any effect on postal voting deadlines, and the answer to that is no, none whatsoever. They remain entirely intact. If there are people in Great Britain who are now able to register but who cannot get postal votes, they can take proxy votes instead. The deadline for proxy votes has not yet evaporated; it will be reached on 15 June, if memory serves. I have not had direct discussions with the Electoral Commission in Northern Ireland about the specific issues that the hon. Gentleman raises, and I suggest that he take them up with my colleagues in the Northern Ireland Office I am conscious of the fact that I am using up time that needs to be used by the House for debate, so I will close by saying simply this. We have, of course, taken advice from our own lawyers—I had extensive discussions with the most senior figures in the Government legal service over a number of hours, as the House might imagine, yesterday—and from not only the Electoral Commission but, through it, its lawyers. We are absolutely convinced that we can do this by statutory instrument within the powers given us under the statutes, and that therefore this is a legally watertight measure. I hope that it will command the support of this House and the House of Lords in time for it to become effective before midnight tonight
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Government Operations
Philip Thomas Hollobone (Conservative, Centre-right): I am listening to the hon. Gentleman with great interest, and I agree that there should be a post-match analysis. Does he share my concern that that analysis will be conducted by the Electoral Commission, which will be writing a report about itself? Should there not be some kind of independent analysis? Otherwise, the report will automatically be skewed.
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Government Operations
Chloe Rebecca Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): Like other right hon. and hon. Members, I shall keep my comments brief. The statutory instrument is a sensible and proportionate measure that is in no way harmful to decent process, as the Minister sensibly set out. It simply picks up and shifts the period, which is a measured way of dealing with this unfortunate problem. I do not like it that the problem has arisen. I was the Minister who introduced online registration, an innovation of which I am very proud, and I wish the system well; we all want to see it functioning properly Let us not forget what the alternative to taking this measure would be. It would be to allow an unlawful situation to have persisted from Tuesday night, whereby people with the right to register to vote were denied the ability to do so—and an arbitrary situation also, given that, because of the nature of queueing on a website, it would not be possible to be even-handed towards citizens. It would be deeply ethically wrong to allow such a situation to persist, so we have no alternative but to take this measure There is another reason. None of us should accept poor service from the Government towards their citizens—those citizens ought to be the Government’s master—so I greatly respect the ministerial team for their efforts to ensure that public services, digital as well as paper-based, work better for citizens. That is very important.
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Government Operations
Chloe Rebecca Smith (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not entirely follow the right hon. Gentleman’s logic. If there is only a lift and drop of the same number of days in total, how will that affect the end result for the Boundary Commission?
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: International Affairs
John Alan Redwood (Conservative, Centre-right): Is it not particularly important in the case of big national issues, such as whether we want an independent democracy in one country, that the electorate be the one chosen by Parliament? Does my hon. Friend share my concern that there is not proper control over continental Europeans registering and voting in the referendum?
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: International Affairs
Philip Thomas Hollobone (Conservative, Centre-right): Because the Labour party would not have agreed to a referendum on our membership of the European Union, and we would therefore not have seen more than 2 million extra people registering. The Conservative victory means that we are a healthier democracy than we could ever have been if Labour had won the election.
EU Referendum: Voter Registration — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Government Operations
Philip Thomas Hollobone (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful for that. It is great to have the latest information here in the House I close on this point—I keep reiterating it, but, as usual, the Government do not seem to listen—why do we not have the simple system whereby every time a member of the public is in contact with a Government agency of some sort, whether it be a local authority or the benefits department, they are asked the question by a Government official, "Are you on your local electoral register. This is how you apply, and we encourage you to do so." I do not see why that should be difficult for the Government to organise across Departments, and it would help to minimise the scale of this problem in future.
Carers — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Social Welfare
Miriam Jane Alice Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I beg to move, That this House has considered carers Imagine a day when 6.5 million people did not turn up to work as expected. They had a duvet day. They went to the beach. They subscribed to Netflix. They did some beauty therapy and some shopping therapy. They went drinking and they had fun—they might have taken a trip to the beach, or had a day at a theme park. What if those 6.5 million people made no arrangements for the care of their loved ones? What if those massive numbers of people simply took a holiday and did not arrange any cover? How many vulnerable people would go unbathed and unfed? How many would be unable to get out of bed to go to the loo? There would be no pills, no jabs, no dressings administered and no GP appointments attended. There would be nobody caring for the people who cannot do it for themselves. How frightening, gravely concerning and inhumane would that be? How many people would die? How many people’s conditions would deteriorate? How would our emergency services cope? Who would pick up the slack if those 6 million carers did not turn up for work one day In this country, 1.3 million provide more than 50 hours of unpaid care a week. The care they provide is worth £132 billion a year, which is what the NHS costs us. There are 150,000 doctors in the NHS and 87,000 soldiers in our Army. In Eastleigh, there are more than 10,000 carers, and the same number in Chippenham and Sedgefield. There are more than 8,000 in Stirling and more than 12,000 in North Antrim. An army of carers turns up every day—day in, day out.
Carers — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Social Welfare
Mary Josephine Robinson (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. She is right to highlight the financial value of carers. Does she agree that the personal value should also be considered? According to Carers UK, three out of four carers feel that their role is not understood in their community. Does she agree that community support is vital in helping to build carer-friendly communities?
Carers — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Social Welfare
Miriam Jane Alice Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and I am delighted to have secured this debate today to highlight these issues. I know that she works tirelessly in her community to support carers and the people who need them. I agree that there is a human cost and an economic cost to caring I thank the Backbench Business Committee for being so supportive in ensuring that this important topic gets time in the Chamber. I hope that this will be a wide-ranging debate. I am also grateful to the Government and to the Minister for Community and Social Care, who has been very supportive of my application to hold the debate this week, which is carers week We know the value of carers, but do we really understand what is involved? How do you become a carer? A loved one might get older or become disabled. A child might be born with challenges. Someone might experience an unexpected change in their health. There might be a car accident or an incident at work. An operation could go wrong. A mental health challenge could arise, resulting in the need for care. All of a sudden, you become someone who needs to be a carer. How do you manage it As my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson) has suggested, long-term caring can have a financial and emotional effect on families. It can have an impact on relationships. You lose friends. You lose leisure time. You also lose your freedom. Relationships between husbands and wives change. You become a carer rather than a lover or a friend. The impact of the need for mum or dad or a child to come first means a big change for families. You can develop a fear of the phone. You could be at work, out shopping, doing the chores or walking the dog when you get a phone call to say that something has happened on your caring watch. It is worrying for you as a carer when the phone rings. You are mindful of what damage could be done while you are not there Carers week represents an important collaboration by Carers UK, Age UK, the Carers Trust, Independent Age, Macmillan Cancer Support, the Motor Neurone Disease Association and the MS Society. The focus this year is on building carer-friendly communities, and that is why I have tried in my opening remarks to remind people that someone in their lives is taking on the extra responsibility of being a carer. How many hidden carers do Members have in their constituency? Who do we know who is taking on that role? This debate gives us a chance to highlight the need to ensure that all our communities are aware of the work that unpaid carers do. Local GPs should understand the restraints a carer might face—I am aware that GPs themselves face many pressures—and employers should be spearheading flexible working and educating their own organisations to support carers.
Carers — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Social Welfare
Jeremy John Elton Lefroy (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this vital debate. Does she agree that some of the hidden carers are young people aged 12, 13 or 14? I have met some of them from Staffordshire and they do the most amazing work. They need our support.
Carers — House of Commons, 2016-06-09
Topic: Social Welfare
Peter James Bottomley (Conservative, Centre-right): Will my hon. Friend allow me to add that each of our offices has caseworkers to whom we should pay tribute for their dedication in trying to help carers and others? That is only one part of carers week, but it is one that should always be remembered. We are grateful to them.