argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Government Operations
Peter Christopher Dowd (Labour, Centre-left): I rise to speak to new clause 1 in my name and that of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and other Members In opening for the Opposition today, I shall start with a few general comments on the Bill before moving on to my substantive remarks on child poverty and equality. First, I must mention the new schedule the Government have tabled, at this late stage, on intangible fixed assets. It is yet another example of the Government’s absolute contempt for parliamentary processes—a result of their desperation to cling to power. Although the Chancellor announced this proposal at the Budget, the introduction of this detailed schedule at this stage of the Bill guarantees that Members are denied the opportunity to scrutinise it properly. It circumvents the Public Bill Committee process, which was created to ensure that technical measures such as this one receive forensic and detailed analysis. This is no way for any Government to conduct legislation. With that in mind, perhaps the Minister could explain why this measure has been included at the final stage of this Bill, denying Members the opportunity to properly scrutinise it. Is it a deliberate decision to once again circumvent parliamentary process? Will he consider withdrawing the schedule and including it in the next Finance Bill later this year, ensuring that it receives the proper parliamentary scrutiny it actually warrants It appears that Ministers are hellbent on starting this new year in the same fashion that they ended the last—by treating Members of this House as a peripheral part of the law-making process, bypassing parliamentary processes and breaking long-established conventions. The vast majority of Members in this House are fed up to the back teeth with the Government’s attempts to avoid parliamentary scrutiny.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Macroeconomics
Peter Christopher Dowd (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are here debating the Finance Bill and the Government’s dreadful performance in bringing legislation to the House for much-needed scrutiny. They seem to be incapable of doing that. They seem to be incapable of doing very much these days Has it not occurred to the Government that had they entered this place in a spirit of co-operation, they might not have suffered defeat after defeat on this legislation? This Finance Bill is the product of a Government on the run—a Tory party totally consumed by its Brexit civil war, unable and unwilling to posit even the feeblest domestic agenda here for fear of upsetting its nasty, hard-right faction. The Prime Minister’s speech about fighting burning injustices has turned to ash. Her claim that she would end austerity lies in tatters. She occupies our highest public office, and yet the public have no confidence in her—neither do many of her own Back Benchers, for that matter Meanwhile, the view is even worse from the Treasury. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that the Chancellor was gambling with the public finances at this Budget, and it seems that even before the Bill has left this place, he has already lost that bet. The Office for National Statistics recently blew a £12 billion hole in the Chancellor’s spreadsheets by returning student debt to the Government’s books So one has to wonder, what is the point of the Tory party—unable to deliver a competent Brexit deal, unable to secure our economic future, unable to meet its own fiscal rules, and unable to deliver a domestic policy programme? It is a party still reliant on the old dogmas of neoliberalism and austerity, unable to see the evidence of its failures. An example of this absurd neoliberal dogma came over the break when, as we heard today, the Transport Secretary awarded a ferry contract to a company with no ferries. If he is looking for expertise in this matter, perhaps I can invite him down to Merseyside, where we have been running ferries since 1330, very successfully—and they are publicly run, I have to say. I invite him to have a go on a ferry up the River Mersey and get the feel for how it works, basically. He will have diplomatic immunity and will not be thrown overboard—I can guarantee that as well.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Social Welfare
Peter Christopher Dowd (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is right, and the reality is that we are not going to get it from the Conservative party—it is as simple as that. It seems incapable of doing anything that is in any way constructive for the social fabric of our country The Government now pick and choose whichever target provides cover for their devastating treatment of children across the UK, including—when it suits them—using the very targets that they themselves scrapped. That is why new clause 1 is so important. The Government can no longer be allowed to ignore the plight of millions of children across the country The statistics do not lie. They show quite clearly that, prior to the Conservative Government coming to power in 2010 with their Liberal Democrat partners, child poverty in the UK was falling. The new Social Metrics Commission, which draws on the widest possible set of poverty measures, states concretely that there are now half a million more children living in relative poverty than there were just five years ago. The whole country knows that austerity is to blame, and we all know who introduced austerity—it was the Government.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Macroeconomics
Peter Christopher Dowd (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Lady is right. The Government appear to want to put misery upon misery on families and children Despite the claims from Conservative Members, austerity was not some necessity nobly chosen by the Government of the day, but a political and ideological choice—it is as simple as that. If it was the only option, why did the United States not embark on a similar venture? Why did the likes of Germany and France not undertake a similar level of spending cuts, or Japan, or, for that matter, Australia? [Interruption.] Conservative Members are chuntering, but those are the questions that we need answering.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Macroeconomics
Peter Christopher Dowd (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend makes an excellent point and backs up the point that I was making Those countries acknowledged a hard economic fact that appears to have stumped this Government: we cannot cut our way to growth. That has failed repeatedly, from its early use under US President Herbert Hoover, which turned the stock market crash into the great depression, to the International Monetary Fund programmes that have been imposed in developing countries and the economic and social devastation inflicted on Greece. This Government’s austerity agenda is yet another failure to add to that list. They have missed every economic target they have set, and it is the poorest in society who have paid the price.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Macroeconomics
Christopher Philip James Elmore (Labour, Centre-left): It is interesting to listen to my hon. Friend’s informed explanation of how austerity has not worked across history. Does he agree that up until the 2010 general election, because of the fiscal stimulus put in place by the Chancellor Alistair Darling and the Prime Minister Gordon Brown, those first two quarters were successive periods of growth, and the economy fell off a cliff because of the austerity introduced by the Conservative party?
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Macroeconomics
Peter Christopher Dowd (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is right. The economy thereafter, with the help of the Liberal Democrats, started to go down the pan. To this day, we have not recovered, and the Government’s own figures indicate that this will go on for many more years. We will have more of the same, and it is not working. When will they learn the lesson? They seem to be incapable. Even the IMF recognises the failure of austerity and has called for increased public spending to offset the negative economic effects of Brexit.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Macroeconomics
Peter Christopher Dowd (Labour, Centre-left): I am sure the House would be delighted to hear my psephological analysis of the general election, but we are talking about the Finance Bill. You are very generous, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I do not think even you would be sufficiently generous as to hear my psephological comments.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Macroeconomics
Peter Christopher Dowd (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker The UN special rapporteur has concluded that the rising level of child poverty is a result of political choices, underpinned by the Government’s callous austerity agenda. I will draw my comments to a conclusion because I know that lots of Members want to comment on how dreadful the Government are, how they try to stitch up Committees, how they do not allow us to have proper debates and how—for the first time since Winston Churchill introduced the notion—they have circumvented the amendment of the law motion. They talk about bringing back control to the House of Commons, but they are bringing back control to about two or three people on the Front Bench, and that does not include the Treasury Ministers The Finance Bill before us is yet another Bill of broken promises. It offers further tax reliefs for the rich and for multinational corporations, and it prolongs austerity for yet another year, condemning many families and many children to abject poverty. Labour’s new clause 1 would require the Government finally to assess the impact of their economic policies on the most vulnerable in our society. It would require the Government to face up to their responsibility to come and explain to this House why they are not yet changing their economic policies, despite the obvious evidence that they are doing dreadful—I repeat, dreadful—damage to this country and to our communities.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Social Welfare
Vernon Coaker (Labour, Centre-left): I support the two new clauses. Unlike the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), I think that they are very measured. They simply ask the Government to review the impact of the Bill on poverty and inequality I do not know what other Members think, but let me describe what I think the vast majority of people in all our constituencies believe, and what they believe this Parliament should be saying and doing. They believe that the current levels of inequality in our country are simply and utterly unacceptable. They believe that the levels of child poverty are simply and utterly unacceptable. They are not interested in someone being able to tell them that there are 2 million children living in terrible poverty, or 1,850,000 children living in absolute or, indeed, relative poverty. That is what those people are sick of, and what I am sick of, and what this Parliament should be reflecting Across the country, people are asking, "Can you not do any better? Can you not do something about the fact that there are still pensioners in one of the richest countries in the world who cannot heat themselves properly in cold weather, including at Christmas?" They are asking, "What is Parliament doing when we see children living in absolute poverty who cannot afford to go to school, with shoes and clothes and food being given to them as an act of charity by people in those schools?" They are not interested in whether the figures have gone up by 0.5% or down by 1%. They are interested in what this Parliament is doing about it, and what we are saying All these new clauses do is say to the Government, "If you believe, for example, that clause 5, through allowing people to keep more of their income when in work, addresses some of those issues, let’s have a review to see whether or not that is the case." That is what people would expect I am sick of this myself. When I drive around, not just my constituency but the country, I see enormous wealth. I am not talking about people who have worked hard and done well, which we all want to see; I am talking about massive accumulated wealth—not just income—with people able to afford to pay astronomical sums on different ways of life, while half a mile down the street there is a kid in a household that cannot afford to put any proper food on the table.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Social Welfare
Catherine Elizabeth West (Labour, Centre-left): Does my hon. Friend agree that it is terrible to think of all the many places in the country where there are so many more food banks, and that the year-on-year increase the Trussell Trust has told us about is deeply worrying?
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Social Welfare
Vernon Coaker (Labour, Centre-left): That is right. Every Member of this House would no doubt say, "Isn’t it great that there are food banks and so many volunteers at them?" I agree with that; I agree that it is good to see in communities across this country, in every part of the UK, so many people who volunteer their time with others donating to them. What I object to is that food banks, which are there as a charity, are used as an instrument of public policy—they are used as a way of tackling poverty. What on earth have things come to in 2018 and 2019 when food banks are a public policy mechanism for dealing with poverty? They are supposed to be charitable organisations for people who have somehow slipped through the net, not places where someone at the DWP sends people with tokens. That is an absolute outrage, and this Parliament should be seething about it. In saying that, I do not decry the volunteers; this brings the very best out of people, but—goodness me—is that public policy now That is what the Minister should be addressing. The challenge that I think every Member of this House would make to the Government would be to ask what is being done to address these issues. We do not want some academic debate about a bit of research here or there which means that the hon. Member for Torbay can say, "There’s 1,000 fewer here and 2% less there." The levels of poverty and inequality in our country are a fundamental disgrace; why are the Government not raging about that and doing something about it through their Budget?
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Social Welfare
Laura Smith (Labour, Centre-left): Does my hon. Friend agree that when he speaks to the food bank volunteers they say to him that they do not want to be doing this work as it should not be necessary because people should be able to pay for the food for their families without having to rely on handouts? They do not want to be volunteering for this because this problem should not exist in 2019.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Social Welfare
Vernon Coaker (Labour, Centre-left): I agree with my hon. Friend In my relatively brief contribution I just want to ask the Government why there is disagreement about these perfectly reasonable new clauses that ask the Government to review the impact on poverty and inequality. When the Minister responds, will he say whether he refuses to keep under review any of the budgetary measures to be implemented through this Finance Bill to see whether they impact on poverty and inequality? Is that honestly what he is saying? If he is not saying that, why cannot he accept a new clause that is asking him to review this? Who disagrees with looking at whether our Government’s policies are actually tackling poverty and inequality? I find this absolutely incredible The Minister can say that this is all rhetorical nonsense, but let us see what he says about how he intends to review the impact of the Government’s policies. For example, he knows that one of the key challenges for Government policy is that, despite what they have tried to do, the number of working people in poverty is increasing. That is a policy challenge. It is not a Labour-Tory thing; it is a policy challenge. If the Minister simply retrenches on this, he is not acting as a Minister of the Crown or a Government Minister responsible for our country; he is acting as a Tory party politician, and that is not what a Minister of the Crown should be doing.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Social Welfare
Vernon Coaker (Labour, Centre-left): I agree. I am not sure if the Minister is listening, but that is the point. Surely the Government would want to know whether their policies were working, so that they could do more of them. And if their policies were not working, all of us would want the Government to change tack Poverty and inequality should be at the heart of everything the Government do and of everything this Parliament demands. All that the new clauses and amendments are doing is saying to the Government, "Look at what your policies are doing. Look at the impact out there. What are you doing to tackle the utterly unacceptable inequality, child poverty and increased use of food banks that we see in our country? How are your policies going to address this?" That is the purpose of the new clauses, which I totally support.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Social Welfare
Laura Smith (Labour, Centre-left): I am completely insulted by the point made by the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main). I grew up in in-work poverty. My parents were working, and I saw them struggle day in, day out, but I assure the House that my aspirations were not stopped. It may do some Members good to understand what people living in such conditions have to go through day in, day out, and Members should not patronise people when they simply do not understand the situation.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Social Welfare
Laura Smith (Labour, Centre-left): I find myself agreeing with what the hon. Gentleman is saying about rural poverty. I am an MP in Cheshire, and our local food bank expresses real concern about the rise in the number of people who live in rural areas having to access the food bank. He is right about pride, and another relevant group is elderly people, who often will not access help and support, so it is important to mention rural poverty.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: International Affairs
Deborah Angela Elspeth Marie Abrahams (Labour, Centre-left): I do not know whether the Minister is aware of this, but the European Commission does this sort of analysis every year on its programme of policies, so it is not that this cannot be done. Its work covers not just quantitative but qualitative data, which relates to the points my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) made. There needs to be more than what the Government are doing—they do not know what the impacts of their policies will be.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Social Welfare
Peter Christopher Dowd (Labour, Centre-left): If I may rephrase St Augustine, who said "O Lord, make me chaste, but not yet," what we have here is a Government saying, "O Lord, make me charitable and compassionate, but not just now. Let’s do it in the future." It comes to something when the British Government, with an expenditure of approximately £840 billion a year, say that it will be difficult to get statistics, either qualitative or quantitative, from which they can make policy. That is how it seems to me, but I tell you what: every day when I am in my constituency I see people who are homeless. What have the Government done about that? Nothing. I see food banks opening up all the time. What are the Government doing about that? Absolutely nothing. What are the Government doing about the 24% of homeless people who are from the LGBT community? Absolutely nothing. And then we heard the dross coming out—that is what it is, dross—about intergenerational worklessness. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation—through evidence, through statistics, through analysis—found that that was not a significant factor in homelessness. So we hear all this talk about charity, compassion and working together, but I am afraid it does not wash when it comes from the mouths of Tories Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: International Affairs
Jonathan Neil Reynolds (Labour, Centre-left): The facts are as they are. It is far too late for that. Everyone knows the position that this country is in. The Government have run down the clock. They lost their majority through a general election that they did not need to call, and it is far too late to start applying the logic that might have applied several years ago. Because of that, our vulnerability is evident for everyone to see. No one should underestimate the likelihood of a no-deal outcome at this stage. No one should be pretending, through semantics or parliamentary chicanery, that we might be able to present no deal as a way of giving us greater leverage in negotiations. I am afraid that the Government have got us to the point of ruin if that is the strategy that Conservative Members wish to pursue.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: International Affairs
Kevin Denis Brennan (Labour, Centre-left): Given that the Business Secretary said in the House earlier that no deal should not be contemplated, and that my hon. Friend is outlining the possibility of the Government accepting amendment 7, would it not be right for the Government to say clearly at the end of business today that they are ruling out no deal because it would be so damaging to this country?
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: International Affairs
Jonathan Neil Reynolds (Labour, Centre-left): I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. We all know that several members of the Government take that view, even though they may not be able to say it on the record. They are quite clear as to what no deal would mean, and they would not contemplate going down that route. It would be far simpler and far better to get to a position where ruling out no deal was clearly the Government’s intent New clause 3 would oblige the Government to publish a review of the fiscal and economic effects of the exercise of the powers in clause 89, as well as the differences between exercising those powers in Great Britain and in Northern Ireland. As we edge closer to the reality of crashing out without a deal, clause 89 is not simply hypothetical. We are now just two and a half months away from the UK’s exit without an agreement. It is therefore of critical importance that we have a full and transparent view of the implications of a clause of this kind.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-01-08
Topic: Foreign Trade
Jonathan Neil Reynolds (Labour, Centre-left): The Father of the House is as accurate as ever. Some colleagues are pursuing a dangerous argument that all our trading relationships with countries that are not in the EU are somehow currently under WTO terms, which is an absurd misconception. We have entered into trade agreements as a member of the EU that account for something like 16% of our goods exports Regardless of the significant impacts of a no-deal outcome, we could go further and say that to leave the EU having not secured a deal—an acrimonious departure —would damage our relationship with our most important trading partner for years to come and fundamentally undermine our credibility on the world stage. I cannot see how any serious-minded Member of this House could understand that that would not be of severe consequence for the United Kingdom, which is why it is so important that this House makes a clear statement today about the dangers of no deal.