argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Adult Social Care — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: [R] The Care Quality Commission says that the social care system is about to topple over. The LGA says that councils cannot cope with the cost pressures, and much of the funding that the Minister has discussed is either repackaged funding or funding that will not kick in until late in this decade. When is he going to come clean about the scale of the crisis, take his head out of the sand and lobby the Treasury to make sure that the promised money for 2020 is brought forward and we get to grips with the care crisis?
Maria Eagle (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am grateful to follow my sister—as I always have Liverpool City Council, which covers most of my constituency, raises £146 million in council tax every year from its council tax base. This year it has spent £151 million on adult social care, yet since 2010, this Government and their predecessor have cut 58% of the budget that the council has to fulfil its statutory obligations. Is the Minister really saying that Liverpool City Council is in a position to spend any more on adult social care, which it needs to do, without more money coming from central Government?
Adult Social Care — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: [R] The Care Quality Commission says that the social care system is about to topple over. The LGA says that councils cannot cope with the cost pressures, and much of the funding that the Minister has discussed is either repackaged funding or funding that will not kick in until late in this decade. When is he going to come clean about the scale of the crisis, take his head out of the sand and lobby the Treasury to make sure that the promised money for 2020 is brought forward and we get to grips with the care crisis?
Catherine Malloy Hollern (Labour, Centre-left): It has been interesting to listen to the Minister’s responses, which demonstrate that the Government do not accept that there is a crisis in adult social care. That denial leads me to worry about the 1.2 million people who cannot even access a service. Local authorities have had to cut between 40% and 50% of their budget. Blackburn Council raises £900,000 with a 2% precept, but to stand still it needs £1.2 million per year and it already has a £5.8 million black hole. Are we seriously saying that we will wait to have conversations to see how we can take things forward? There is a crisis happening now—we are heading for winter and we are putting old people in danger. Will the Secretary of State find the £2.6 billion that is needed now?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Labor
Teresa Pearce (Labour, Centre-left): Changes to the local government pension scheme that recently came into effect were debated in a statutory instrument Committee last week. During the debate, the Minister indicated that EU directive 41/2003 does not apply to the LGPS, yet a letter I have here from his own Department says that it does. Will he confirm that the directive does apply and that it has been applied?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Government Operations
Questions: The Valuation Office Agency appears to be a law unto itself. At the click of a mouse, it seems to be able to change the way in which large sites such as the Vodafone headquarters and the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston are rated, wiping millions off the income of a small unitary local authority such as West Berkshire. Will the Minister agree to look into this matter?; As North East Lincolnshire Council is being forced to shut down its credit union services, does the Minister agree that his Department’s funding cuts to councils have been great news for loan sharks?; Does my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State agree that the actions announced in last week’s autumn statement will improve not only access to housing but the living standards of ordinary working people and their families?
Diana Ruth Johnson (Labour, Centre-left): Through no fault of its own, Hull has struggled to be part of any devolution deal in Yorkshire and the Humber, despite accepting the elected mayor model and recognising the importance of devolution to economic regeneration for the city. Will the northern powerhouse Minister agree to meet local MPs, councillors and others to discuss what has worked elsewhere in the country and how we can take Hull forward?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: The Valuation Office Agency appears to be a law unto itself. At the click of a mouse, it seems to be able to change the way in which large sites such as the Vodafone headquarters and the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston are rated, wiping millions off the income of a small unitary local authority such as West Berkshire. Will the Minister agree to look into this matter?; As North East Lincolnshire Council is being forced to shut down its credit union services, does the Minister agree that his Department’s funding cuts to councils have been great news for loan sharks?; Does my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State agree that the actions announced in last week’s autumn statement will improve not only access to housing but the living standards of ordinary working people and their families?; As my hon. Friend the Minister will know, Bath and North East Somerset Council recently voted in favour of entering the west of England devolution deal. Will he join me in congratulating the council on making this decision, which will devolve powers to the region and allow it to invest in affordable housing projects across Bath and the west of England?; Leeds City Council is developing a local plan, but reports suggest that it is unable to demonstrate that it has a five-year land supply, which is endangering sites that the plan seeks to save. Has the Department considered giving some leeway to councils that are in the process of developing a local plan so that they do not need such a long-term housing supply?; While I welcome the £55 million of funding for the South East local enterprise partnership, it falls well short of the £229 million that was applied for, which would have secured a great deal of business growth and economic development in the area. Will my hon. Friend point me in the direction of any future funding that might bring us to the table to secure the economic growth that is needed?
Tracy Lynn Brabin (Labour, Centre-left): In Kirklees, the amount spent on social care has gone down in real terms by 15.7% since 2010, despite demand increasing with a rapidly ageing society. What steps are the Government taking to help local councils with the £1.9 billion funding gap in adult social care this year?
Aleppo — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: International Affairs
Alison McGovern (Labour, Centre-left): Last week, I and the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) welcomed the head of the Syria Civil Defence force, the White Helmets, to Parliament. Raed Saleh told us of the terrible situation in Aleppo: the lack of food, the lack of medical supplies, and the constant bombing by Assad and the Russians. Since then, the situation has worsened. A renewed assault by Assad has recaptured a large part of the city, as the Minister described, forcing thousands to flee with just the clothes on their backs This morning, I was sent a statement from the White Helmets, which read: "Dear Friends in Britain, Aleppo is in a state of emergency. 279,000 people have been under siege for 94 days. In the last 13 days the Syrian Regime and Russia have launched more than 2,000 airstrikes and unleashed a variety of banned weapons… We are calling on you, as the friends of the Syrian people to act. The Syrian Regime and Russia are refusing to let aid into the city so we are calling on you to airdrop aid to provide urgent relief to the starving civilians trapped… We can not believe that one of the world’s most powerful countries, in the full glare of the media, will allow 279,000 people to be starved and bombed to death." My question is this: is the counsel of despair that we heard this morning from the Defence Secretary on the radio really all we have left? There is something we can do. We can airdrop aid into the besieged areas, as the White Helmets are calling for and as a cross-party letter signed by 126 Members of this House has demanded. I ask the Minister to respond to that letter to the Prime Minister here. We can renew the push in the UN for the creation of a humanitarian corridor to get help to civilians. Will the Minister confirm that he raised that in his conversations with our ambassador The Government have always said that airdrops are a last resort and I understand that, but Gareth Bayley, the UK special representative for Syria, has tweeted about Aleppo today, saying: "Situation in #Aleppo could not be more dire: every hospital out of service; official food stocks run out; nowhere for civilians to run" He called Aleppo "a coffin". Does the Minister agree that the Government need an urgent strategy to protect civilians? When hundreds of thousands of civilians are being starved and bombed into submission, we must consider airdrops. It is time for the last resort What Britain stands for on the world stage is being challenged. This is a test. There is no risk-free course of action left, but I believe there is a right course of action. Let us not stand and watch as one of the great cities of the world is destroyed. Let us not allow 100,000 children to starve in eastern Aleppo. When Kosovo was under attack, Britain led the response. When people in Sierra Leone cried out for our help, Britain led the way. The people of Syria need us to show that leadership. Jo Cox said that our response to Syria would be "emblematic" of our generation, and "how history judges us". Her words are ever more true today, so let us not fail.
Aleppo — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: International Affairs
Emily Thornberry (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting the urgent question from my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern). As she made clear, there is no more urgent situation in the world right now than the humanitarian crisis in east Aleppo. With no functioning hospitals to handle the mounting civilian casualties, food supplies exhausted and tens of thousands of people already facing starvation, we truly have reached the point of last resort, and the Government have previously made it clear what that should mean. The former Foreign Secretary said in June: "While air drops are complex, costly and risky, they are…the last resort to relieve human suffering across many besieged areas." To be clear, nobody in the House underestimates the complexity and risks involved, but with no alternatives and thousands facing death if they do not get immediate supplies of food and medical equipment, these are risks that we must be prepared to take. Will the Minister take the urgent steps required today to agree a plan for airdrops by British planes with the UN and our international partners, as has been called for by the White Helmets, whose representatives I too met last week? The UN’s humanitarian adviser, Jan Egeland, was asked at the weekend what plan B was if Russia and Assad kept up their criminal assault on east Aleppo and continued to block supplies of aid by road. He said: "Plan B is that people starve. And can we allow that to happen? No, we cannot" He is quite right, and I hope that the Minister will agree.
Aleppo — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: International Affairs
Hilary James Benn (Labour, Centre-left): I think that, in truth, all of us in the House, and in the world, feel ashamed by the fact that we are unable to bring food and medical supplies to the 250,000 people who are trapped in eastern Aleppo, including, as we have heard, 100,000 children. They are in harm’s way today. I understand—we all understand—the difficulties involved in airdrops, such as the one raised by the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), but back in the summer—as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry)—the then Foreign Secretary told the House that agreement had been reached for airdrops to be used if necessary. I simply say to the Minister that if this is not the last resort, given what is being reported every day, what on earth is?
Aleppo — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: International Affairs
Benjamin Peter James Bradshaw (Labour, Centre-left): I have a lot of time for this Minister, but he should not rewrite the history of what happened in 2013. As one of the Labour MPs who did support action against Assad back then, may I gently point out to him that two of his colleagues who were recently Foreign Office Ministers, a former Secretary of State on his own Benches, the Labour Front-Bench team and Labour Back Benchers are all calling for the Government to bring something back to the House on airdrops, so why does he not just do it?
Aleppo — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: International Affairs
John Woodcock (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister knows that I respect him and I know that he wants to do more, but I have to say that for a Minister of the Crown to stand at the Dispatch Box and effectively read from a Kremlin press release in saying that any aid mission will be shot down is a poisonous and sickening counsel of despair. He has said that he wants parliamentary backing for us to do more—for a unilateral or multilateral mission. He has that, so why do the Government not have the courage of their convictions and make sure that this can be another Kosovo, rather than another Rwanda?
Aleppo — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: International Affairs
Fiona Margaret Mactaggart (Labour, Centre-left): I was distressed by the implication in the Minister’s remarks that those of us who voted against airstrikes in Syria were somehow responsible for his decision not to put forward airdrops for aid. Frankly, at that point, we were not convinced that the balance of harms was being sorted in the right way. I think if he was today to call for a vote of this House, those who, like me, opposed military strikes on Syria would strongly support any action that can get humanitarian aid to those starving communities. I know that he is talking about this, but what is he actually going to do to get this aid to the people who are starving?
Aleppo — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: International Affairs
Michael John Gapes (Labour, Centre-left): Can the Minister confirm that the action taken in Kosovo did not have a UN Security Council resolution? Many of us called on William Hague, when he was Foreign Secretary in 2011 and 2012, to support no-fly zones similar to the ones John Major had established to protect the Kurds in Iraq. Is it not time for us all to recognise that we have allowed Russia to get into this position because we failed to act, not in 2013, but in 2011 and 2012, when Assad started murdering peaceful protesters? Is it not time to recognise that the UN Security Council is hamstrung and that we need to act, even without a Security Council resolution, to save hundreds of thousands of lives?
Aleppo — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: International Affairs
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): Putin’s standard modus operandi is the excessive use of force, as we saw in the Beslan massacre, in the siege of the Moscow theatre, in Chechnya, in Georgia and in Crimea, and as we now see in the complete obliteration of Aleppo. Is not the really worrying thing for the future, even beyond the situation in Syria, that the robust facing up to Putin, in so far as it has existed at all, is now fracturing? How are the Government going to make sure we maintain a steady, robust course?
Aleppo — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: International Affairs
Mary Helen Creagh (Labour, Centre-left): All of Aleppo’s hospitals are out of action, meaning that medics are having to amputate children’s limbs without anaesthetic and to deal with the victims of chemical attacks with just water and oxygen. The Minister asks whether there is a safer way to deliver aid, yet he knows that the Syrian regime has bombed the latest humanitarian convoy which went to the city in September. He knows that there will be no political solution while Assad and Putin think they can win the upper hand through military activity. The residents of Aleppo do not want to die and it is in our power to help them—if not now, when?
Aleppo — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: International Affairs
Diana Ruth Johnson (Labour, Centre-left): I have a great deal of respect for the Minister, but I am disappointed that there was no statement from the Government today. Does he not believe that it would strengthen the Government’s hand on the world stage in negotiating on airdrops to have the will of Parliament, which should express its view on a Government motion?
Aleppo — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: International Affairs
Maria Eagle (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister set out in some detail the difficulties that he and his colleagues face in dealing with this very difficult situation, and I appreciate that. He said, however, that the Government were considering a number of options. Given that 100,000 children are on the point of starving and 250,000 people in total are enduring the conditions in Aleppo, will he undertake to come back to the House with a statement next week about the options that the Government are considering and set out what the Government propose to do? The situation is incredibly urgent.
Aleppo — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: International Affairs
Katherine Anne Green (Labour, Centre-left): I voted against airstrikes in 2013, and I agree with the Minister about the need to deliver aid on the ground, not least because some of the aid that is needed is medical care—physical and mental—which can be delivered only in person. However, I signed the letter that was published this morning, because the people of Aleppo are suffering in the most acute circumstances, and it is no longer acceptable to me or my constituents to stand by. I echo the calls of my right hon. and hon. Friends for the Minister and his colleagues to bring a fully worked plan to the House at the earliest possible opportunity, explaining fully the risks so that hon. Members can take a fully informed decision about the issues we face. I am confident that that decision, reflecting the wishes of our constituents, will be to find a way to alleviate the terrible suffering in Aleppo at the earliest possible opportunity.
Aleppo — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: International Affairs
Tom Blenkinsop (Labour, Centre-left): What conversations have the UK Government had with the US President-elect, who has a desired policy of rapprochement with Russia and the Assad regime? What consequences will it have for British policy if we have to act more unilaterally given the US President-elect’s current policy?
Digital Economy Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Technology
Robert Howard Marris (Labour, Centre-left): I quite understand that the Minister wants buy-in from the commercial social media platform providers. In response to the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), he sketched out a position that appears to be that there is no actual code of practice, but that codes are being developed. Perhaps I misunderstood the Minister because I thought he had said before the right hon. Lady’s intervention that codes of practice are in place and working well I will quickly mention the changing circumstances. The Minister is quite right that this is a fast-changing world. Subsection (4) of new clause 13 states: "The relevant Minister may from time to time revise and re-issue the code of practice", so the very flexibility that he is praying in aid would be delivered by the new clause.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Technology
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): I hear all these statistics about the level of coverage there is meant to be here, there and everywhere, but they never seem to match the reality on the ground or in the living room or in the shop. I live in the town of Porth in the Rhondda, and through the main street almost right through the town there is absolutely no mobile coverage from any of the companies, so it does not matter whether one of them is providing a good enough service—none of them are.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Technology
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): I am not trying to make a partisan point, but I think the Minister was trying to there. All I am saying is that even with the changes to the electronic communication codes that are in the Bill, I do not think we will be able to achieve that 98% or 100% coverage, because it is still too easy for an individual landholder to make it difficult for significant improvements to be made to the infrastructure in the area. Surely we should now be seeing access to mobile telephony as the same as access to water.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Technology
Robert Howard Marris (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister is being very generous, but may I caution him and press him a little on the methodology of the "premises by premises" survey? I live in a dense urban area. The coverage is nominally 4G, but I check my phone periodically, and I see that sometimes I get 3G and sometimes I get 4G. What will the premises survey say about properties like mine? I am paying for 4G, and it is the future, but I am not getting it all the time.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Technology
Kevin Denis Brennan (Labour, Centre-left): I rise to speak to new clauses 10, 32 and 7, which stand in my name and those of my hon. Friends, the Government new clauses, which the Minister has outlined, and new clause 1, tabled by the hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), whom the Minister mentioned. I will also refer to some of the other amendments in the group In Committee, Labour Members, and indeed the hon. Lady, made it clear that we could not see how age verification could operate without a backstop power to block sites that failed to comply. In Committee, the Minister resisted that strongly. He said: "The powers are not a silver bullet; sites that were actively trying to avoid the Bill’s other enforcement measures would also be able to actively avoid these measures. It is questionable how much additional enforcement power they would bring, given those downsides." He went on to say: "I think the Bill has ended up with the correct balance." —[Official Report, Digital Economy Public Bill Committee, 20 October 2016; c. 209.] Clearly, the Secretary of State disagreed with him on that. She has now overruled her junior Minister by tabling new clauses 28 and 29 in her name, as we can see on the amendment paper. The new clauses tabled by the Secretary of State, who unfortunately is no longer in her place, represent significant changes at quite a late stage in the passage of the Bill in the Commons, confirming our contention that the Bill as published was not ready to leave home when it was allowed to do so.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Technology
Kevin Denis Brennan (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful for that intervention. All I can say is that I have just given the Secretary of State credit for the change, as the hon. Lady suggests I should The new clauses introduce significant changes at this late stage in the consideration of the Bill. We support blocking, but concerns have been raised in the press that the new clauses go beyond a backstop power to block sites to under-18s and could be used in practice to extend internet censorship to adults. The Government need to be clear whether that is the intention of the new clauses.