argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Amendment of the Law — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Technology
Margaret Patricia Munn (Labour, Centre-left): I am pleased to speak in my final Budget debate. In his Budget speech, the Chancellor said: "Future economic success depends on future scientific success".—[Official Report, 18 March 2015; Vol. 594, c. 776.] I agree entirely, but this Budget does not do enough to unlock the potential of our science, engineering and technology industries, which have the capacity to grow and to invent and develop new products that will create jobs and wealth. Research by EngineeringUK shows that simply filling the demand for new engineering jobs could generate an additional £27 billion a year for the UK economy from 2022 The Government claim that 8% of jobs created while they have been in power have been in skilled occupations, but the large demand for more skilled people is not being met. We need more engineers. Companies need 182,000 people with relevant engineering skills per year.
Amendment of the Law — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Macroeconomics
Graeme Morrice (Labour, Centre-left): Like the Chancellor’s previous five Budgets, this one does nothing to recognise or address the problems faced by my constituents and many others across the country. It is a Budget that yet again demonstrates how out of touch this Government are The Chancellor talks of a national recovery and an economic plan that is working. However, the reality is that thousands of hard-working people in my constituency continue to experience low pay and in-work poverty. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is right to say: "There was little in today’s Budget to enable those on the lowest incomes to be part of an economic recovery." Indeed, about 18,000 of my constituents currently earn less than the living wage The Chancellor’s announcement of a 20p increase in the minimum wage will mean very little to my constituents. It is yet another example of a broken promise from a Chancellor who, over a year ago, promised to increase the minimum wage to £7 per hour. People in my constituency and across the country deserve better and it is clear that more needs to be done to help those on the lowest incomes. It was a Labour Government who introduced the minimum wage and it will be a Labour Government who go further and increase it to £8, because that is what people deserve.
Amendment of the Law — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Labor
Yasmin Qureshi (Labour, Centre-left): When zero-hours contracts are properly used, which is rare, they are fine—I am talking about students who work part time—but we now have 1.5 million people on them.[Interruption.] I am sorry; I thought that the hon. Gentleman wanted to intervene again.
Amendment of the Law — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Labor
Yasmin Qureshi (Labour, Centre-left): No, no. To say that we are a party that does not believe in business or enterprise is wrong. We are a party with a social conscience. Some years ago, when my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition talked about producers and predators, he was said to be anti-business; he was not. We are the party that believes in fairness. We are the party that believes that if a person does a day’s work, they should be properly remunerated. We are the party that spent many hours in the previous Parliament arguing for the minimum wage when everyone in the Conservative party was trying to argue against it. We have a record of which we should be proud.
Amendment of the Law — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Macroeconomics
Elizabeth Anne McInnes (Labour, Centre-left): Last week, we had the Budget announcement and the eclipse. One plunged the nation into darkness and the other one was a rare and important astronomical event. [Interruption.] I got one laugh, thank you The Chancellor claimed that Britain was walking tall again, giving the impression that our economy was booming, that well-paid jobs were being created, and that voters were better off now than they has in 2010. But are voters really better off, because that is not what they are telling me in Heywood and Middleton Many of my constituents work in the public sector where they have seen their pay frozen since 2010 or have been subjected to below-inflation pay rises. Some NHS workers have seen their pay fall by as much as 30% through the withdrawal of recruitment and retention premiums and reductions in out-of-hours pay on top of flatlining basic wages, not to mention additional pension contributions.
Amendment of the Law — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Labor
Stephen Twigg (Labour, Centre-left): It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), who spoke with characteristic passion on behalf of his constituents in Foyle and more broadly in Northern Ireland In his speech last week, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that "the north grew faster than the south".—[Official Report, 18 March 2015; Vol. 594, c. 767.] However, when we scratch beneath the surface, the Chancellor’s headline figures do not match the reality on the ground. In the region where my constituency is situated, the north-west, it is true to say that in a single year, 2012-13, the north-west was the fastest growing region in the country, and that is welcome, but if we look at the first three years of this Government, 2010 to 2013, the overall figures for the north-west show that we have grown more slowly than any region other than Northern Ireland. So yes, there is welcome news in that one year, but taking the three years as a whole, the picture is not quite the one that the Chancellor set out I welcome the fact that unemployment is down. In my constituency in Liverpool, the memories of jobless economic recoveries of the past are very real, especially the impact of the Thatcherite policies of the 1980s. Unemployment can leave a scar on communities that may last for generations. As we all know, the evidence shows that once people are out of work, it can be very hard for them to get back into it. In my constituency many people are managing to find work. Over the past year the claimant count is down by 28%. Work is a good thing, but the quality of jobs is surely critical as well. Once again, the story is more complicated than that set out by the Chancellor last week or the Secretary of State earlier this afternoon Too many of the jobs in Liverpool are insecure, low paid jobs. The growth in agency work lies behind a large part of the fall in unemployment in my constituency. Recently, I met two local people, one of them a constituent, who worked at a factory in Liverpool. They had worked there for several years. However, they are paid and technically employed not by the company that runs the factory, but by one of the biggest agencies and suppliers of contract labour. They do the same work as regular staff, but are paid £2 an hour less, and the supply of hours is sporadic and uncertain. Their holiday and sick pay entitlements are far worse, and scandalously, one of them told me that when he suffered an injury at work, the medical centre at the factory turned him away because technically he was not an employee. Surely such working arrangements are unfair and wrong.
Amendment of the Law — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Labor
Julie Elliott (Labour, Centre-left): However bad those contracts are, does my hon. Friend accept that the explosion of zero-hours contracts, which are even worse than agency contracts, has occurred under this Government because of the tightening of some regulations to try to stop the abuse of agency worker regulations?
Amendment of the Law — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Labor
Stephen Twigg (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is absolutely right to make that point as we seek to understand the reasons for that and find solutions. I will come to that next I pay tribute to the employment, enterprise and skills select committee of Liverpool city council and its chair, Councillor Barry Kushner, for undertaking painstaking research that shows the extent of this problem. Their work has revealed that there are currently about 6,500 vacancies in Liverpool, over half of which are agency jobs. The council has identified the Swedish derogation as a major cause of the increase in exploitation. This derogation allows for agencies to employ staff directly and the eventual engager—the employer—to treat workers less fairly than their directly employed workers. Without the derogation, the system would still allow for the use of agency workers, which can still be of real use in various sectors, but the engager would be obliged to give the agency workers the same rates of pay as their permanent staff after a 12-week period in employment. The two local people I met who have been working for years at the same factory, but are paid less than the colleagues they are working alongside, feel like second-class citizens. Reforming this area would make a real difference for them. That is why I am delighted that my hon. Friend the shadow Business Secretary has promised that a Labour Government would end the Swedish derogation for agency regulations—a change that cannot come soon enough Other long-term changes need to be made. To tackle the structural problems of a low-pay, low-skilled job market, we need to ensure that entrants to that market have the appropriate skills. As a country, we have failed for far too long in this respect. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has talked about the "forgotten 50%"—the young people who do not get the opportunity to go to university. It is welcome that fewer young people are unemployed, but our youth unemployment rates are still significantly higher than those of countries such as Germany, Austria and Norway that have invested in high-quality technical, vocational and practical education that breaks down the barriers between different sorts of learning We need to strengthen devolution within England. That is why the Andrew Adonis review recommended an English devolution Act, a central plank of which would be to devolve powers and funding for skills, and commission 19-plus further education provision based on local decision making. On top of this, city and county authorities should have the power to commission the Work programme in order to get the long-term unemployed back to work. I pay tribute to Liverpool’s mayor, Joe Anderson, and to Liverpool city council for the extraordinary work they have done to promote apprenticeship and work opportunities for people of all ages, but particularly young people.
Amendment of the Law — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Education
Stephen Twigg (Labour, Centre-left): That is not what the Leader of the Opposition has said. I worked on that policy. We want to ensure that apprenticeships are high quality, learning from the countries I mentioned that have a great track record in this area. Our policy is not the policy to which the hon. Gentleman referred I appear not to have received the extra minute for the intervention that I think I should have had, Mr Speaker. Should I have that extra minute?
Amendment of the Law — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Education
Stephen Twigg (Labour, Centre-left): I am immensely grateful to you, Mr Speaker To get this right, we need to give priority to spending on education. That is why the commitment that the Labour party has made to protect the entire budget of the Department for Education, including early years and 16 to 19, is so important. That contrasts significantly with the Conservative policy, which does not protect early years and 16 to 19. Those are precisely the areas that have faced the biggest cuts over the past five years, and they would face even bigger cuts were the Conservatives to win again. Investment in education and fairness in the jobs market should be features of a Budget, but they were not features of this one.
Amendment of the Law — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Macroeconomics
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): Now that the dust has settled from Thursday’s Liberal Democrat statement, has my hon. Friend had the chance to scrutinise the document—published online, rather than available in the Vote Office—and if so, may I draw his attention to table 2.A on the scenario input assumptions? Did he notice, as I did, that the source for the assumptions was not authoritative bodies such as the ONS, the OBR or the IFS, but none other than the Chief Secretary to the Treasury?
Amendment of the Law — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: Macroeconomics
Christopher Michael Leslie (Labour, Centre-left): This is very confusing. So the right hon. Gentleman supports the Budget, but he opposes the Government. He wants to be a Minister, but he does not want to be a Minister. Will he at least agree that the cuts for the next three years are extreme and would be damaging, and will he confirm that he does not support the depth of the cuts to our public services over the next three years?
1915 Armenian Genocide — House of Commons, 2015-03-23
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen Pelham Pound (Labour, Centre-left): I have immense respect for the right hon. Gentleman—he and I have met the President of Armenia, and I entirely respect his position—but immediately after the genocide, the British Navy took 50 of the worst suspects from the Young Turks to Malta to try them because it recognised that what had happened was against civilisation. There was not sufficient legislation at the time for the trial to take place so the British took them back—probably rightly so—but does he not agree that we need that recognition now so as to avoid such a situation in the future? I am not criticising Turkey. I am talking about the Ottoman empire.
Aerospace Engineering: Pendle — House of Commons, 2015-03-26
Topic: Technology
Margaret Mary Beckett (Labour, Centre-left): As in Pendle so in Derby great concern followed the Government’s plans for aerospace engineering, following the announcement by Rolls-Royce last year that 800 skilled engineering jobs would be lost in the UK. When many of us, including the Minister, met the company to discuss forward plans in November, did the Government know that Rolls-Royce would be recruiting up to 500 skilled engineers in Bangalore, and does he share my concern for what that implies for the long-term future for skilled jobs in the UK?
Aerospace Engineering: Pendle — House of Commons, 2015-03-26
Topic: Macroeconomics
Christopher Williamson (Labour, Centre-left): Rolls-Royce has received hundreds of millions of pounds from the British taxpayer for research and development, yet the company has not paid corporation tax for a considerable time. It is now offshoring jobs to low-wage economies—we have heard about India this morning. I have heard Ministers say that they want to rebalance the economy, so what steps has the Secretary of State taken to try to deter companies from offshoring high-skilled engineering jobs?
Small Businesses — House of Commons, 2015-03-26
Topic: Labor
Margaret Patricia Munn (Labour, Centre-left): Many small engineering companies would have liked the opportunity to apply to the £10 million fund to support women engineers, but the design of the fund meant that they could not afford to do so. Unfortunately, less than £200,000 was spent of the £10 million. In his last few days in office, will the Secretary of State look again and ensure that the rest of the money is specifically designated to support women engineers, especially women returning to work, and that small businesses can afford to apply for it without the barriers that were previously put in place?
Engineering — House of Commons, 2015-03-26
Topic: Education
Questions: What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of steps taken by his Department to encourage more young people to obtain qualifications leading to careers in engineering.; It’s all right—it’s not a difficult one. Further to my hon. Friend’s excellent and encouraging answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Sir Peter Luff), whose departure from this House we will all regret, may I point out that a company in my constituency, a very successful business called Technetix that I went to visit some time ago, drew to my attention the fact that it was having to recruit engineers from abroad because it simply could not find enough here. The figures I asked for in a question show that in 2004 5,630 electronic and electrical engineer graduates appeared, but that in 2013-14 only 5,500 appeared. The Government are doing a great deal and the call for inspiration is worthy, but we need to deliver many more people to engineering.
William Roffen Esterson (Labour, Centre-left): I was at a school in my constituency on Monday where the students told me of the difficulties they had studying engineering and other STEM subjects. The school said the problem was it could not recruit the teachers. There has been a shortfall in the number of teachers recruited to STEM subjects in the last few years as well. Does the Minister agree that this is a fundamental problem and that the action taken by the Government on teacher training has not addressed it at all?
Infrastructure Development — House of Commons, 2015-03-26
Topic: Transportation
Diana Ruth Johnson (Labour, Centre-left): Business leaders in Hull would like to have the rail line to Hull electrified, but that was missed out of the Government’s plans. Why is the Minister blocking Labour’s plans for an independent infrastructure commission, as recommended by Sir John Armitt, to take the politics out of the major infrastructure decisions that this country needs?
Student Loans — House of Commons, 2015-03-26
Topic: Education
Questions: Have the Government examined the case for lifting the cap on student fee contributions, perhaps just selectively? If so, what conclusions have they reached?
Adrian Edward Bailey (Labour, Centre-left): As Chair of the Select Committee, I thank the Secretary of State and his team of Ministers, both current and past, for their unfailing willingness to appear before the Committee and be questioned on their policies. I also thank them for adopting so many of our recommendations, and hope that they will look again at those that they did not adopt According to the Office for Budget Responsibility, £12 million of the projected deficit from the non-repayment of student loans will be funded by the sale of the student loan book. Given the low rate of repayment of those loans and the low interest rate that they attract, what assessment has the Minister made of the incentive that may be needed to induce people to buy them?
Basic Maths and English Skills — House of Commons, 2015-03-26
Topic: Education
Alexander Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): Two weeks ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) and I met the principals of the Tees Valley further education colleges, who pressed for an end to the funding disparity between FE colleges and other parts of the education system. They were particularly concerned about English and maths, but they were also worried about further cuts in funds for school leaver and adult funding, and asked whether the FE loans programme could be extended to people over 19 who were on level 3 programmes. I do not know whether the Secretary of State plans to be in government after 7 May, but if he has any influence, what does he or the Minister think can be done to address the issues raised by our principals?
Zero-hours Contracts — House of Commons, 2015-03-26
Topic: Labor
Questions: If he will ensure that employees working on zero-hours contracts who are in practice working regular hours over an extended period have the right to a fixed-term contract.
Paul Phillip Flynn (Labour, Centre-left): May I take the Minister forward to the morning of 8 May, when she will be in her kitchen having a moment of kitchen candour over her muesli, liberated from control by the thought police of the Tory nomenklatura, and she will be making a judgment on her Department’s legacy on the question of the most vulnerable of workers, those on low pay and on zero-hours contracts? Would that verdict not be, "Nothing achieved, much lost"?
Regional Growth — House of Commons, 2015-03-26
Topic: Foreign Trade
Ian Murray (Labour, Centre-left): Here comes a tenuous link. The strength of the EU and the euro is critical not just for the economic success of the UK, but for regional growth. However, major concerns are rightly being raised about the effect that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations will have on our national health service and public services. Will the Minister and his business team use this very last Business, Innovations and Skills questions to rule the NHS out of the TTIP negotiations, or will it be left to a Labour Business Secretary and a Labour Government, as it always is, to save our NHS?
Balance of Trade — House of Commons, 2015-03-26
Topic: Foreign Trade
Kelvin Peter Hopkins (Labour, Centre-left): The UK has a trade deficit of about £1 billion a week with the rest of the EU, equivalent to 1 million jobs lost, and the significant depreciation of the euro rate against sterling, while bringing a short-term benefit to the trade balance because of the J-curve effect, will cause serious longer-term damage to the economy. What discussions has the Secretary of State had with the Chancellor and the Governor of the Bank of England about this worrying matter?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2015-03-26
Topic: Labor
Alexander Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): The Secretary of State has kindly met me several times, along with local companies from my constituency, to discuss development. In most of the cases, I have been grateful to him for a positive outcome. Jobs are good, but I would ask for his comments on the so-called drop in unemployment in Stockton where just over one third of those no longer claiming jobseeker’s allowance have found a job. Does he have any idea where his Tory colleagues have hidden the hundreds of people from Stockton who have not been that fortunate?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2015-03-26
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: Alstom in my constituency has announced that it will build its replacement automation research and development and manufacturing centre on the new business park in Stafford, which is a far-sighted investment both by Alstom and by the county council, which constructed the park. Does my right hon. Friend the Minister agree that that demonstrates the importance of providing the infrastructure and incentives so that we retain manufacturing investment in the west midlands at the same time as attracting it from overseas?
Chuka Harrison Umunna (Labour, Centre-left): This is indeed the last departmental questions of this Parliament and, Mr Speaker, it has been good to see you in your place at all of them. I have enjoyed my exchanges with the Secretary of State and note that during his time no fewer than nine Conservative minders have been sent to ensure, as his former deputy, the Defence Secretary, has intimated, that he does not slip his electronic tag. In all seriousness, despite all the efforts to promote certainty for business, does he agree that the biggest uncertainty facing business in this country is his Tory Prime Minister’s decision to flirt with EU exit and that the biggest mistake for his party would be to go along with it?