argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Value for Money — House of Commons, 2017-11-29
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: Is the Minister convinced that expenditure on private schools in Africa is the best use of public money and provides the best outcomes, given the report published recently by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg)?
Christopher Murray Alexander Law (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): May I first welcome the Secretary of State to her new post? May I also welcome the Moderator of the Church of Scotland to the Gallery There is no greater value for money in aid spending than protecting the future of our natural world for generations to come. Following the UN COP23 talks earlier this month, which I attended, it is undeniable that we are reaching the tipping point of no return on climate change, and all nations agreed that we must go "further, faster, together". Given that the Department for International Development is a major shareholder in the World Bank, which still spends much more on oil, gas and coal than on clean energy, will the Secretary of State give me her personal commitment that she will use all her powers of persuasion with the World Bank to ensure that it invests more in clean, safe renewables than in fossil fuels?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2017-11-29
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen Patrick Gethins (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): As in Bangladesh and Burma, the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Yemen is a man-made one. The Secretary of State talked about having influence on the perpetrators of that conflict. With the tax take from arms sales now outstripping the level of aid, does she not think the time has come to stop arms sales to the combatants in that conflict?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2017-11-29
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: Making a success of the South Tees mayoral development corporation is vital for Teesside, and I was delighted to welcome the Prime Minister to my constituency this summer. Will the First Secretary join me in recognising the scale of the opportunity represented by the MDC, agree that it offers a chance to redefine Teesside to the world and commit that the new money awarded in the Budget is only the start of the process of delivering on its huge potential for change?; This week one of Labour’s last two remaining councillors in Boston crossed the floor to join the Conservative party. He said that he did not want to see the country go back to 1973. Will the First Secretary join me in welcoming this new member to the Conservative party, and does he agree that an open, optimistic Britain deserves better than reheated Marxism and Labour’s bankrupt economy?
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): May I join the First Secretary in congratulating Prince Harry and Meghan on their engagement, and wish them a long life and happiness together? May I also welcome the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Right Reverend Derek Browning, who is with us in the Gallery today Will the First Secretary of State now tell the House how much money the UK Government have received from Saudi Arabia as a result of arms sales since the war in Yemen began?
Engagements — House of Commons, 2017-11-29
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: Making a success of the South Tees mayoral development corporation is vital for Teesside, and I was delighted to welcome the Prime Minister to my constituency this summer. Will the First Secretary join me in recognising the scale of the opportunity represented by the MDC, agree that it offers a chance to redefine Teesside to the world and commit that the new money awarded in the Budget is only the start of the process of delivering on its huge potential for change?; This week one of Labour’s last two remaining councillors in Boston crossed the floor to join the Conservative party. He said that he did not want to see the country go back to 1973. Will the First Secretary join me in welcoming this new member to the Conservative party, and does he agree that an open, optimistic Britain deserves better than reheated Marxism and Labour’s bankrupt economy?
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): That was a long time to be unable to answer the question. I can tell the First Secretary that the UK Government have received £4.6 billion from selling arms to Saudi Arabia since the war in Yemen began—a war that has created a devastating humanitarian crisis. Yemen is now on the brink of famine, and UNICEF has said that 150,000 children will die by the end of the year. Does the First Secretary not agree that the best thing the Prime Minister can do in her meetings today is follow the example of the Netherlands and suspend licences for arms sales to Saudi Arabia to stop killing children?
Exiting the EU: Costs — House of Commons, 2017-11-29
Topic: Macroeconomics
Kirsty Ann Blackman (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie) for bringing this matter to the House There would be no newspaper rumours about the sum if the Government actually told us what the sum was. Nobody voted for this disastrous, disorganised EU exit. People voted for £350 million a week for the NHS, not to spend £40 billion or £50 billion just to be worse off. Our public services must not pay the price for this Brexit mess. It surprised us all when the Prime Minister found a magic money tree earlier this year, so surely the Government cannot have been lucky enough to find two. Given that last week’s Budget did not make provision for this £40 billion or £50 billion, will the Chancellor now bring forward an emergency Budget to explain where he is finding the money?
Exiting the EU: Costs — House of Commons, 2017-11-29
Topic: Macroeconomics
Andrew Egan Henderson Hendry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Page 25 of the Government’s brand new industrial strategy document states that the Government are seeking a transition—sorry, an implementation period—of "around two years". Does the reported deal include provision to pay for an extended deal beyond two years?
Rail Update — House of Commons, 2017-11-29
Topic: Transportation
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I, too, thank the Secretary of State for early sight of his statement. Unfortunately, I am having to thank him for early sight of what is a disappointing damp squib. Given the media coverage last night about the possible reversal of the Beeching cuts, I hoped there would be some firm commitments in the statement, but there is nothing other than a throwaway line The Beeching cuts were typical of the Tory policy of knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing, and this attitude continues in the Secretary of State’s ideological adherence to privatisation. While he worships the private sector, he needs to remember that there are already four foreign state-owned rail companies operating existing UK franchises. If it is good enough for foreign state-owned companies, it should be good enough for UK state-owned companies to run the franchises. I hope that he supports the Scottish Government’s move to make a public sector bid in Scotland The Secretary of State trumpets the turnaround in rail since privatisation, but he does not say that it has been driven by a 90% increase in public sector investment and a real-terms fare increase of a quarter. That is where the real investment and the turnaround have come from. The Secretary of State’s real masterplan is to create alliances and effectively to sub-divide Network Rail, so I have the following questions. What is the overall governance structure to prevent inter-alliance conflict? Given that he is such a fan of devolution, will he devolve Network Rail to Scotland? Who will fund the new railcard for 26 to 30-year-olds? Will the smart ticket system automatically provide consumers with the cheapest fares? If he is considering reopening lines, will he stop the fire sale of Network Rail assets? He will be well aware that the Scottish Government built the biggest new line in the UK for more than 100 years, on the borders. Will he consider reconnecting Carlisle to the borders by rail? Finally, what are the statement’s funding implications for Scotland, and will he review the existing funding gap of £600 million in control period 6?
Rail Update — House of Commons, 2017-11-29
Topic: Transportation
Andrew Egan Henderson Hendry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It is a year and a half since the then Under-Secretary of State responded to our calls to look at extending the borders rail link—incidentally, it was delivered on time and under budget by the Scottish Government—to Carlisle, and she said that she was interested in looking into that. Will the Secretary of State now take those discussions forward with the Scottish Government?
State Pension Age: Women — House of Commons, 2017-11-29
Topic: Labor
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I beg to move, That this House calls on the Government to improve transitional arrangements for women born on or after 6 April 1951 who have been adversely affected by the acceleration of the increase to the state pension age Madam Deputy Speaker, may I wish you and everybody else in the Chamber a happy St Andrew’s day for tomorrow? With your forbearance, I will just remark that today is the 50th anniversary of the mighty Hibernian football club defeating Napoli—with Dino Zoff in goal—5-0 at Easter Road, ensuring that they went on to the next stage of European football I am delighted to open the debate and to move the SNP’s Opposition day motion calling for mitigation for women born in the 1950s. We are here in support of the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign and its efforts to secure fairness for women affected by the acceleration in their retirement age. I am saddened that we are having yet another debate on this issue, but the fundamental fact is that the Government should have taken action to mitigate the increase in women’s pensionable age. There must be action. The 3.8 million affected women have waited simply far too long for effective mitigation.
State Pension Age: Women — House of Commons, 2017-11-29
Topic: Labor
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I have heard about spinning, but let me deal with the facts. The hon. and learned Lady refers to the fact that the Government brought in the Pensions Act 2011, but that increased the acceleration. To say that the Government have mitigated the situation is a distortion of reality, and Government Members should stop spinning and tell the 3.8 million affected women the truth: the pensionable age is increasing by three months per calendar month. That is the reality. The Government should be utterly ashamed of trying to argue that they have mitigated things, which demonstrates that some Conservative Members simply do not get what is going on.
State Pension Age: Women — House of Commons, 2017-11-29
Topic: Labor
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I know that many Members want to speak, so I will make some progress and let people in later This is about women who have paid national insurance in anticipation of receiving a pension and have been hit with the bombshell that their pension was being deferred—in some cases by up to six years—with only 15 months’ written notice. Members should dwell on that. They were looking forward to retirement, but they received a letter telling them that they were going to get as little as 15 months’ notice of an increase in their pension age. Can anybody on the Government Benches defend that? Will anybody stand up and tell the House and the public that giving someone 15 months’ written notice of an increase in their pension age is acceptable? Is anyone prepared to do that? If so, I will happily give way.
State Pension Age: Women — House of Commons, 2017-11-29
Topic: Labor
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Well, there we are. Given the opportunity to defend the indefensible, we again get spin. Let me make things absolutely crystal clear. The national insurance fund is sitting at a surplus in the region of £30 billion, and that surplus has been generated by the women who have paid national insurance. All that we have asked for is that the women be given what they are entitled to receive. A pension should be seen as a right, but the Government have changed the terms and conditions of that right without consulting those who have paid in for a pension. As many of the campaigners have said, "We paid in, you pay out." This campaign is at the heart of SNP policy. We have long fought for the Government to rectify the shambles and give the WASPI women the pensions they rightfully deserve. I speak on behalf of SNP Members when I say that we will never rest until justice is delivered for the women affected. The Government have failed time and time again to address the injustices of a lack of notice for the acceleration of the state pension age. There is an opportunity today for the Government to admit that effective notice was not given of an increase in pensionable age. The process of increasing pensionable age must be slowed down.
State Pension Age: Women — House of Commons, 2017-11-29
Topic: Labor
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): There we have it. Does anybody here think the Scottish Government have power to introduce pensions? [Hon. Members: "No!"] I will tell the House why: it is because we do not have the powers. It is about time that Conservative Members stopped creating the impression that we have that power Let me be absolutely crystal clear. Power over pensions is reserved to Westminster. There is a bit of a clue, because pensions are paid out of national insurance. I would love the Scottish Government to have control over national insurance. Let me make it clear that if we had control over pensions in Scotland, we would make sure that the WASPI women in Scotland got what is rightfully theirs.
State Pension Age: Women — House of Commons, 2017-11-29
Topic: Labor
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): There is a very simple answer. I have respect for the hon. Gentleman, as he knows, and he should go back and read the 2016 Act, because it is crystal clear that we cannot introduce new benefits, nor can we introduce payments based on age. The fundamental point that needs to be made is that we are talking about the state pension in the United Kingdom, which is a reserved matter. It ill behoves any Conservative Member to try to create the impression that the people of Scotland and elsewhere have powers that we do not have. If Conservative Members want the Scottish Government to have the powers to fix this, then give us the powers. Give us control over pensions and we will fix it tomorrow.
State Pension Age: Women — House of Commons, 2017-11-29
Topic: Social Welfare
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The simple fact is that the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government do not have the ability to introduce new benefits based on age. What is really important, and the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Ross Thomson) should reflect on this, is that this is a failure of UK Government policy. Nobody can get away from that. Are the Conservatives in Scotland really saying that the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government should again clear up the mess left by this Conservative Government? The Scottish Government have already spent £400 million mitigating the worst effects of Tory austerity That is the reality—[Interruption.] I see the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) chuntering. Maybe he could answer this question. Was he one of those who signed the WASPI pledge? Did he say to his voters that he would stand up for the WASPI women? If he is true to his word, he has to come through the Lobby with us this afternoon, or his words will be shown to be meaningless and a fraud on the people of his constituency.
State Pension Age: Women — House of Commons, 2017-11-29
Topic: Macroeconomics
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I hoped he would be backing me, and he has been resolute on this issue over a long period of time. He is absolutely right; we can find money on the magic money tree for Northern Ireland and, as I said in the Budget debate only last week, we found £70 billion for quantitative easing last year. A £70 billion cheque was written for the Bank of England to put into the financial markets, so do not tell us that the Government cannot find the money. Of course, the answer to the question is that the money is there because the national insurance fund is sitting on a surplus.
State Pension Age: Women — House of Commons, 2017-11-29
Topic: Social Welfare
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I must make some progress. I will not take interventions for a while. The moment has never been so opportune for Members on both sides of the House to come together to do the right thing and to call for this long-standing error to be corrected. Conservative Members made a pledge to the WASPI women as recently as June 2017. Scottish Tory Members—I will not name them, but they know who they are—signed the WASPI pledge before the general election and claimed to be prepared to act against party orders on the issue. There has been a deafening silence from them on this matter since the election, and the heckling has gone The House might be interested to know that, in the constituencies represented by Scottish Conservative Members of Parliament, a total of 84,000 women are affected by this Government’s legislative changes. I ask this question of the Scottish Tories, in a friendly spirit, particularly to those who supported the WASPI women during the campaign: will they have the courage to join us in the Lobby this afternoon, or will they turn their backs on the 84,000 WASPI women in their own constituencies I flag up to them page 62 of the Scottish Conservative manifesto, which states: "We will also ensure that the state pension age reflects increases in life expectancy, while protecting each generation fairly." So, today, Scots Tories, do the right thing.
State Pension Age: Women — House of Commons, 2017-11-29
Topic: Labor
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am grateful that DUP Members will be going through the Lobby, but let me point out that we are trying to set out the facts of the arguments in this House. These women have for too long been let down by politicians, so let us use the opportunity we have today to give them the result they deserve. Thanks to freedom of information requests, we learned that the Department for Work and Pensions only began writing to women born between April 1950 and April 1955 in April 2009, and did not complete the process until February 2012. So it was writing to women to inform them about changes in legislation that go back to 1995 but it did not start the formal notification period for 14 years. Taking 14 years to begin informing women that a pension they had paid into was being deferred is quite something. Can we imagine the outcry if a private pension provider was behaving in such a way? There would be an outcry in this House and, no doubt, legal action. When we consider that entitlement to a state pension is earned through national insurance contributions, where many women have made contributions over 40 years, this is stunning A woman born on 6 April 1953 who, under the previous legislation, would have retired on 6 April 2013 would have received a letter from the DWP in January 2012 with the bombshell that she would not be retiring then—she would be retiring in July 2016. That is three years and three months later than she might have expected, and this is with 15 months’ notice. That is what Conservative Members have been defending, and it is no wonder the WASPI women are insulted. We are talking about 15 months’ notice before what they thought was a contract they had with the Government was simply to be ripped up A pensions White Paper published in December 1993 stated: "In developing its proposals for implementing the change the Government has paid particular attention to the need to give people enough time to plan ahead and to phase the change in gradually" Not much there that I would disagree with, but when you accept the need for people to plan ahead, you need to write to them and tell them.
State Pension Age: Women — House of Commons, 2017-11-29
Topic: Labor
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Again, I am grateful for that intervention, and the hon. Gentleman is correct in what he says. This is yet another clear example of why there is absolutely no excuse for not collectively taking action today. We have a choice: we can recognise the injustices that the women have faced or we can sit on our hands and do nothing. This is about morality. It is about doing the right thing. The Minister can look up to the skies, but it is not going to remove the problem for him. I do not want to wait until the end of the debate and then get another 10 minutes of ignoring the reality of what is going on. We have had that for too long and it has to stop—it has to stop today The intent was there in the 1993 White Paper, but it was 2009 before any formal letters went out. Then we have the issue of phasing this in gradually. What we are dealing with is an increase in a woman’s pensionable age by three months for each calendar month that passes. It is simply scandalous that a woman’s pensionable age is increasing so rapidly. It is indefensible and it is not within the spirit outlined in the Government’s White Paper in 1993 In October 2002, while giving evidence to a Select Committee, the DWP suggested that the role of the state was "to provide clear and accurate information about what pensions will provide so that people will understand how much they can expect at retirement before it’s too late to do something about it." How does "before it’s too late to do something about it" equate with 15 months’ notice? How can the Minister, and how can anyone who is not going to support our motion today, support that lack of notice? It has gone quiet now, has it not?
State Pension Age: Women — House of Commons, 2017-11-29
Topic: Labor
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman is going to have to do better. Of course this is ring-fenced—it is for pensions. Pay it out! That is what the Government are being asked to do. As I was saying, no formal communication took place until 2009 and the task was not completed until 2012. The DWP has to take responsibility for this failure to communicate and, crucially, for the lack of time that women have had to prepare for an increase in their state pension age. Rather than recognising that women deserved to be communicated with directly, the DWP issued leaflets headlined "Equality in state pension age". Can anybody in this Chamber remember them? No, I do not recall seeing them either. That is no surprise, as DWP-commissioned research in 2004 highlighted that only 2% of respondents mentioned that they had been notified of changes to their pension age via a leaflet. That is the responsibility that the Government took to inform people. Frankly, it is an insult that the Government at the time thought that changes that affect a woman’s retirement age could be delivered with a leaflet. That was an abdication of responsibility and we have to take responsibility for that. We should all receive an annual statement from the DWP on our expected entitlement, just as we do from private pension providers.
State Pension Age: Women — House of Commons, 2017-11-29
Topic: Social Welfare
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am asking for your guidance about what we can do, because the Minister, perhaps inadvertently, is seeking to mislead the House. It is absolutely crystal clear in the Scotland Act 2016 that the Scottish Parliament is not in a position to introduce benefits by reason of old age. That is quite clear, and the Minister should be truthful with the people of this country. He should stop blaming the Scottish National party and the Scottish Government for a responsibility that solely lies here with Westminster.