argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-09
Topic: Social Welfare
William David McKenzie (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my noble friend for that intervention. I doubt there is much that she does not understand or is incapable of understanding, but she asked a highly relevant question. I hope that the Minister will give that assurance We have had a number of contributions to this debate. My noble friend Lord Liddle took us back in history but stressed the importance of the work that went into developing these measures in the first instance, enjoining the skills of Tony Atkinson. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham recognised the value of having worklessness and educational attainment as part of a measure. However, he said that that was not sufficient; there needs to be a focus on income if life chances are to be influenced and addressed The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, supported the existing measures in legislation. I think that the Child Poverty Act was the first legislation that the Minister worked on in opposition when he joined this place. At the end of the day, I thought that we had pretty much cross-party agreement, although it is fair to say that the Minister said there were other aspects of poverty which he thought should be reported as well. However, I do not believe that is the same as tearing up the Child Poverty Act, which is what this piece of legislation seeks to do. This is a very important issue because, unless we look at income, we will not address the here and now of poverty. It is all very well looking at some of those factors which have medium and long-term effects on people’s life chances, but we also need to address how people without resources exist today. That is why we need these amendments.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-09
Topic: Social Welfare
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, that is one reading of it. I am sorry to trouble the Committee with this but the review makes it clear that while worklessness with both parents out of work is obviously a primary driver, if only one parent is in work there is still a very substantial risk of in-work poverty, as has been explained time and again. That is why in the Government’s own research they are brigaded together.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-09
Topic: Social Welfare
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): We are putting a lot of emphasis on full-time employment, but children in persistent or recurrent poverty will usually be the children of lone parents, who by definition, because they are bringing up children, have limits on the hours they can work. Another such group would be disabled people. It is the combination of low pay in work and limited hours that keeps them in poverty, although they are in work. To say they must go into full-time work when they have young children shows no understanding —if I may say this—of what it is like to be a single parent bringing up several children on your own.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-09
Topic: Social Welfare
Tessa Blackstone (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, would the Minister agree that most of those who have taken part in this debate have no objection to collecting information about worklessness or work as it affects those in relatively low-income groups? That is not what we are arguing about. What we are asking the Government to do is to go on counting the number of children who are living in poverty, whether their parents are in work or not in work The bewilderment about this that I expressed earlier is now somewhat reduced, because I think I understand why the Government do not wish to go on collecting this information—even though it is entirely wrong not to, because if you want to get rid of something or end it, you count it, otherwise you do not know where the hell you are. I think it is because of something he revealed earlier, which is that the Government do not want to have targets. I can see why the Government may not want to have targets, because it is often difficult to meet them, as we have seen in a lot of other areas, for example with the migration statistics. However, I am not asking that the Government necessarily stick to having targets. What I am asking, and what everyone else who has spoken in this debate, with the exception of the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, wants, is that we retain proper, basic information—which any good Government who are concerned with evidence when developing their policies must have—on how many children, whether their parents are in work or not, are living in poverty. That is all we are asking for. Why are the Government not prepared to do this? Abandon the targets if you like, or do not call them targets, but do the measurements.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-09
Topic: Social Welfare
Margot Aline (Labour, Centre-left): Given what the Minister just said, will he now accept the case for keeping the income measures in the Bill even if he abandons the targets? As my noble friend said, the argument has really been purely about targets. I thought targets were quite helpful for the same reason as the noble Lord—my noble friend—Lord Kirkwood, but if that is what frightens the Government and there is really not much difference between us, then okay. What is stopping the Government keeping the measures supported by 99% or whatever of the scientific community that responded to their earlier consultation on child poverty that they seem to have completely ignored?
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-09
Topic: Social Welfare
Tessa Blackstone (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, though the Minister makes a commitment, will he accept that, as is so often said in this House, if there is no statutory requirement and nothing on the statute book any one of his successors could abandon that commitment? That is why we who have concerns about children in poverty want this measure to go on being collected and to be done under statute.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-09
Topic: Social Welfare
William David McKenzie (Labour, Centre-left): I agree that we should have this in legislation but can the Minister confirm that his personal commitment will cover the circumstances and the work that needs to be done to identify whether somebody is experiencing material deprivation? That is not just an income issue.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-09
Topic: Social Welfare
Margot Aline (Labour, Centre-left): I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken. It has been a remarkably well-informed and genuine debate, where Peers have responded to what others have said. Sometimes it does not work like that. I think the message that has gone to the Minister has been pretty overwhelming. I thank him for genuinely engaging with noble Lords in his speech. However, I have not heard one convincing argument from him about why income and deprivation measures should not remain statutory. I heard his arguments for why targets should not be statutory; I do not agree with them, but he made an argument, and that is fair enough, but he has not responded convincingly to my noble friend Lady Blackstone or anyone else who made that case. We have heard such strong argument on that, but I have not heard one convincing reason why an in-work poverty measure should not be in the Bill. We can trade statistics until the cows come home. I have seen the recent transition statistics, and they support my case as well as the Minister’s, and actually they are irrelevant. The point is that we need to know what is happening to those in work as well as to those out of work. There has been no convincing argument from the Minister in response to the very well-informed points that have been put by noble Lords I remind the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, that when the Prime Minister was leader of the Conservative Party he welcomed this. He said: "We need to think of poverty in relative terms—the fact that some people lack those things which others in society take for granted. So I want this message to go out loud and clear: the Conservative Party recognises, will measure and will act on relative poverty" How can it if it does not have the measures in the statutes as they now exist I will withdraw the amendment, but I think we will want to come back to this issue on Report because it is so important. Perhaps by then, the Minister will have come up with some rather more convincing arguments than he has done hitherto. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-09
Topic: Social Welfare
William David McKenzie (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I shall be brief because I know that we want to make progress today. I support wholeheartedly my noble friend Lady Lister, with her brilliant exposition as to why we should substitute "life chances" for "social mobility". I join her in opposing the proposition that Clause 5 stand part of the Bill. We have a very specific amendment in this group, Amendment 41, which is merely to delete the words, "on request", so that the commission, whatever its final title and remit, can be proactive in offering advice to the Minister. That obviously carries the implication that the commission must be appropriately resourced. Perhaps the Minister will tell us what is intended in this regard. I hesitated to raise that issue, because I feared that the Minister was going to tell me that we put it there when we were in government, but I hope that he will not. Even if we did, it seems to be entirely reasonable that it should now be expunged from the provision I also support those who argue that there should be proper strategies, so that you do not just have odd reporting obligations: there must be an intent to come forward with a strategy focused on life chances and on fuel poverty. As the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, said, if we do not have a strategy, where is all this reporting going to lead? Given the hour, I think I will leave it there.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-09
Topic: Social Welfare
Margot Aline (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken, particularly the right reverend Prelate, whose argument was far better than mine on life chances. What better argument is there than using terms that children themselves can understand? Starting at the end, I am desperately disappointed by the Minister’s response. He simply has not addressed the arguments as to why "life chances" would be a better title for the commission than "social mobility". I am very disappointed by that. I thought he might be able to go away and say, "Yes, perhaps there’s something to be said for that". Instead, he has said that they will expand the remit of the commission, but he is actually narrowing it. Which is it: expansion or narrowing? It is not at all clear. Why drive on social mobility rather than on life chances, which still allows you to talk about social mobility but has the advantages that I set out and as the right reverend Prelate did in his killer argument—if he does not mind me calling it that? We have had no answer to those. As I say, I am desperately disappointed The Minister kindly said that he thought he would please me with his response on strategy. I appreciate that, but I am afraid I am not that easily pleased. Again, there is that key word, "statutory". On the previous group of amendments my noble friend Lady Blackstone explained why that word is important: Governments and Ministers change. Given that the intention is to produce a life chances strategy, why not make it statutory? There is no argument about targets. We are agreed on it. Again, I am rather disappointed that the Minister has been unable to say that the Government will think about it and that it would perhaps be good to have a statutory duty. I am talking not about tick-boxes or anything like that, but about the kind of strategy that he is talking about Again, we may have to come back to these questions on Report because we have not heard convincing arguments in response to a very strong set of arguments from a number of noble Lords. Having said that, I of course beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-09
Topic: Labor
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): Would the noble Lord agree that the Department for Work and Pensions has always understood that dilemma and therefore, particularly for disabled people, has sought to reduce the risk of going into work, in terms of both the claimant’s health and the viability of the job, by having extensive linking rules? The linking rule that if you cannot sustain a job, you can go back on to your previous level of benefit allowed a lot of disabled people, under the New Deal for Disabled People, to springboard into work.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-09
Topic: Social Welfare
Margot Aline (Labour, Centre-left): The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, has made a very powerful case as to why cutting benefits actually makes it harder for people, particularly disabled people, to find work. That has also come out in other research. For example, Community Links has said that if you push people into survival mode, then they just have to focus on surviving I want briefly to respond to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, who talked about the incentive structure. We have heard a lot about the famous OECD quote, which has been bandied back and forth. I thought it might be worth reading out the paragraph from which that quote came: "A policy of no welfare would be the best solution to maximise labour supply, if equity issues were not a concern" I shall miss out the next sentence, but it does not change the meaning: "distributional issues are a primary concern when designing policies to help people return to self-sufficiency through work and, in this context, studies show that in-work benefits can maximise social welfare" The message coming from the OECD report that has been quoted so often is in fact that the answer lies in improving support for those in work—which, of course, the Government are making worse—rather than cutting benefits for those out of work Another OECD report that came out only two years earlier, on incapacity benefits—so I am surprised the Government have not mentioned it—called Transforming Disability into Ability, refers to the benefit traps and incentive problems that the noble Lord talked about. However, it said: "The evidence concerning such types of benefit traps is inconclusive" I suggest that it remains inconclusive, and the evidence prayed in aid by the Government does not support the case for this really quite savage cut in benefits for disabled people.
Prüm: UK Opt-in — House of Lords, 2015-12-09
Topic: International Affairs
Richard Rosser (Labour, Centre-left): The Government gave their reasons for the Prüm decisions not being among the 35 as time and money. Is the Minister really saying that the cost was such that it prevented the Government opting back in to the Prüm decisions earlier? Is he really saying that a Government who were determined to opt in and stay in as far as the Prüm decisions were concerned could not have done so in less than five and a half years—or what actually is now going to be seven years—during which this Government have been in office?
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-09
Topic: Social Welfare
Jill Pitkeathley (Labour, Centre-left): I shall speak to Amendment 55, which was so ably spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. Earlier today, many hours ago, my noble friend Lady Lister reminded the House that caring for people is part of how society works. Nowhere is that more true than those parents who are looking after a disabled child. So the proposed changes on conditionality for responsible carers, which would see carers with a child aged three or four being allocated to the work-related requirements group—requiring them to look for, and be available for, work—are of great concern Many parents and carers of disabled children aged three to four will be unable to fulfil these requirements because, as we have heard, there is a great lack of childcare for disabled children. Research shows that only 21% of local authorities say that there is sufficient childcare for disabled children in their area, a situation that is bound to get worse with the cuts to local authority funding. A recent Contact a Family survey showed that only 60% of parents with disabled children were able to fully access the current entitlement of 15 hours’ free childcare every week As we have heard, while carers of children in receipt of the higher-rate or middle-rate care component of DLA are exempted from these requirements, many children under five do not receive the benefit anyway because of the time taken to identify that child as disabled. Speak to any parent of a disabled child and they will tell you a long saga of how long it took to get a diagnosis, with administrative delays on top of that, so it often takes years to get that identification. Surely the carers of disabled children under five should be exempt from the additional conditionality unless appropriate childcare is available When this was debated in Committee in the Commons, the Minister agreed that appropriate childcare was critical—I emphasise again, childcare appropriate for children with disabilities—and I hope that the Minister today will be able to give an undertaking that the condition will not apply unless appropriate childcare is available.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-09
Topic: Labor
Margot Aline (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I will briefly support what my noble friend and the right reverend Prelate said, because there is research that bears out what my noble friend has just said. It was carried out at the University of Bath by Professor Jane Millar and Tess Ridge. They talked to both the children and the parents— lone mothers who had gone back to work. We are talking about slightly older children, of course. They said that for many families, the lone parent moving back into paid work did make life better. They got more money, the children felt better and so forth. But the findings also showed that, "lone mothers’ aspirations for financial security were not always congruent with the reality of employment in low-paid, sometimes insecure work … For some children the challenges and costs of their mothers being in work were thrown into sharp relief by the accompanying low pay, uncertainty and insecurity of work. For these children work had held out the promise of something better and that promise had not been kept, so they experienced disappointment, and for some, an apparent loss of confidence in the value of work" I am sure that that is not what the Government are trying to achieve The report went on to say: "Mothers’ experiences of establishing themselves as working families were marked in many cases by continuing low income and financial insecurity … Enhanced in-work support; increased reward from work coupled with adequate support when employment fails; flexible employment conditions and improved childcare options based on children’s own identified needs and preferences, are important prerequisites for successful lone mother employment and work-life balance. Otherwise increasing compulsion to work may result in greater uncertainty, stress and instability for children and their families".
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-09
Topic: Social Welfare
Jean Lesley Patricia Drake (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I will be very brief. I am concerned, having heard noble Lords articulating their concerns, that a particular omission is not missed. My noble friend Lady Sherlock and the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and all other noble Lords, have articulated very clearly the concerns about balancing the needs of the child and the need for employment, and the importance of appropriate childcare. I just want to return once again to kinship carers Although the Welfare Reform Act 2012 exempts kinship carers from work conditionality requirements for a year after they take on the care of a child, ongoing, the young children that these kinship carers take on may still have very severe needs and insecure attachments such that suitable and appropriate childcare is really quite difficult to find. I just want to make sure that, in the Minister’s considerations, the need for kinship carers not to be sanctioned in those circumstances is not omitted.
Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-09
Topic: Labor
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): The noble Baroness mentioned earlier in her speech something that made me shudder: the very serious situation in which a lone parent voluntarily leaves her work and therefore has sanctions applied to her. That might make sense for a young single man with no other responsibilities who has not been engaged in work and so on, but not for a lone parent. When a lone parent says that she left her job because her child was X, Y and Z, how does the Minister expect a 22 year-old man in a jobcentre to know whether that did or did not require, and was appropriate for, a sanction? It seems to me that these are different planets. I am baffled that the noble Baroness thinks that such highly sensitive issues, with every child being different in their needs, can be judged by a box-ticking mentality in Jobcentre Plus.
Northern Ireland: Political Developments — House of Lords, 2015-09-15
Topic: Law and Crime
Alfred Dubs (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, of course we want the bipartisan approach to continue, and of course we want the Good Friday agreement and the institutions to be brought back as soon as possible, but I wonder if the Minister could clarify something. Surely there is a difference between criminality and paramilitary activity, even if the people who are alleged to have done it were former members of a paramilitary organisation. Are we not endangering Northern Ireland by suggesting that the tragic murder of Kevin McGuigan was definitely to do with paramilitary activity, when a lot of evidence suggests that it was ordinary—common or garden, very nasty—criminality?
House of Lords Appointments Commission — House of Lords, 2015-09-15
Topic: Government Operations
David Edward Lea (Labour, Centre-left): That this House calls on all political parties to work together, in conjunction with a statutory House of Lords Appointments Commission, to ensure that recommendations for future appointments to the House (including those arising from the internal mechanisms of the parties themselves) are made with a view both to enhancing the reputation of the House and to ensuring an appropriate balance between the political parties.
Scotland Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-24
Topic: Macroeconomics
George Foulkes (Labour, Centre-left): I am sure the House will recognise that, but can the Minister help us? If, during the discussions on the fiscal framework, the Scottish Government’s representatives conclude, as they may well do, that they are better off with a block grant based on the current arrangement of the Barnett formula than raising money through the tax powers on a low tax base, and if they do not accept the proposal from the UK Government on the fiscal framework and the Scottish Parliament fails to give legislative consent to this Bill, what is the Government’s plan B?
Scotland Bill — House of Lords, 2015-11-24
Topic: International Affairs
John Reid (Labour, Centre-left): I would just like to probe a little on the Government’s view that it is unhelpful to have a timeline for this and to envisage potentially indefinite discussions. I heard what the Minister said about unilateral declarations of times being unhelpful, which surprised me because the vow, of which he has spoken very much, unilaterally declared three timetables: St Andrew’s Night, Burns Night and so on. I wonder why the Government have changed their mind. Would it not be helpful at least to have some indication of the timescale in which they would hope to reach agreement? I declare an interest as a former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, where things tended to drift on for years rather than months.