argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Universal Credit and Working Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2021-09-15
Topic: Social Welfare
Ian Robert Byrne (Labour, Centre-left): There are 14.5 million people living in poverty. The Government’s cut to universal credit at the end of this month will cast more than half a million people, including 200,000 children, into poverty. Let us digest those figures, the human cost that they entail, and how they shame one of the richest countries in the world and shame this Government I ask again the question that the multimillionaire Chancellor failed to answer last week: "what assessment the Government have made of the impact of the cut, and how many…people in Liverpool, West Derby"— where 20% of my constituents are on universal credit— "will be forced into poverty".—[Official Report, 6 September 2021; Vol. 700, c. 145.] I also ask whether the Minister has considered whether the cut is a violation of international human rights obligations In Liverpool, Fans Supporting Foodbanks fed 4,000 people last month. Next month, it is looking to expand that to 8,000 people. That is where we are at the moment. That is where we are under this Government. I remind them that it is 2021, not 1821 I ask the Minister to digest this list: Manchester, Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Liverpool, Liverpool city region, Rotherham, Totnes, Brighton and Hove, Haringey, St Helens, Newcastle, Portsmouth, Durham, Preston, Sheffield, Coventry and Birmingham. All those places have declared themselves Right to Food towns and cities in response to the humanitarian crisis of food poverty in our communities before the cut. I say to the Minister: end this immoral plan to cut universal credit, extend the uplift to legacy benefits, and, instead of attacking our communities, focus your energy on addressing the injustices of inadequate Government support, low pay and insecure work.
Universal Credit and Working Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2021-09-15
Topic: Social Welfare
Nadia Edith Whittome (Labour, Centre-left): I got into politics in 2013 because I saw the devastating impact of the bedroom tax on my community, my friends and my neighbours. In 2013, we were angry and we were tired of three years of public sector cuts, but never for a minute did I think that I would be here, eight years and billions of pounds of cuts later, asking the Government not to implement the biggest welfare cuts in the history of the welfare state. It is not only the universal credit cuts that will hit low-income families; those cuts are combined with the 3.2% rise in inflation, the national insurance rise, the end of the furlough scheme and the resumption of evictions. It is not the Tory party’s billionaire donors, who have increased their wealth during the pandemic by more than £100 billion, who are paying the price; it is key workers like my former colleagues in social care, shop workers and teaching assistants For many of the families I represent, £20 is the difference between eating and not eating. International law is very clear that cuts should not occur if human rights violations would occur, so is the Secretary of State still "entirely happy" with a cut that will plunge 730,000 children into poverty? What does she have to say to the 14,250 families in Nottingham East and the six million families across the country who will lose £1,000 per year? I do not want to hear about incentives to get people into work—the Conservative party knows full well that the cut hits people who are in work, because work does not pay. Cancel the cuts, introduce a real living wage and scrap the benefit cap.
Universal Credit and Working Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2021-09-15
Topic: Social Welfare
Bethan Winter (Labour, Centre-left): It is abundantly clear that Conservative Members do not care about or understand the human cost of the decision that they are about to make. Far too many in this House live, and have always lived, lives that are miles away from the reality of life for constituents of mine—constituents like Sara, who is petrified of what impact losing the £20 uplift will have on her and her family. How will she pay the rent? How will she feed her family? How will she pay all her bills? She is afraid of losing what little she has, and of losing her dignity To a member of that exclusive club of millionaires, property owners and bankers to which so many Tories belong, this must seem like another country, but it is not. It is our country, the fifth richest nation in the world, and Sara, like other constituents, is one among millions throughout our country whose lives will be devastated by this cut. In my constituency, 43% of families with children are receiving universal credit or working tax credit, and our community will be particularly impacted by this cut However, the cut in universal credit is not just cruel; it is economically unsound. The Bevan Foundation, a Welsh think-tank, has calculated that it will take approximately £286 million out of the Welsh economy, potentially damaging the economic recovery. Talk of levelling up is cheap. This cut does nothing to aid any levelling-up process in my constituency. It actually does the opposite. It is clear to me that the Government are pursuing an economically illiterate policy. The cut will have catastrophic consequences for millions of people across the country, and will cause immeasurable hardship to millions I implore the UK Government to do the right thing and cancel the cut; to go further and extend the uplift to people on legacy benefits; and even to take more radical action such as trialling a universal basic income.
Universal Credit and Working Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2021-09-15
Topic: Social Welfare
Rachel Louise Hopkins (Labour, Centre-left): In my two minutes, I want to make a couple of key points. The Conservatives’ planned £20 cut in universal credit is truly callous, but it is also economically illiterate. I am astounded that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions should agree that she is "entirely happy" with this decision. Five million households, including 3.5 million children, will suffer a cut of £1,000 a year, and that personal impact will be exacerbated by the damage to our recovery, as local economies are stripped of vital money that would otherwise be spent with local businesses. In Luton, we face an estimated £16.5 million being stripped from our local economy. That will impact on local businesses trying to recover after the pandemic, as we have heard from other Members Luton has been particularly exposed to the economic fallout of the pandemic, because it has one of the highest proportions of workers in sectors that are vulnerable to lockdown and restrictions, notably aviation, retail, hospitality, food and accommodation. As a result, it has seen one of the biggest claimant count increases anywhere in the country. With furlough ending next month and no sector-specific financial support package for the aviation industry, I cannot but foresee more people having to rely on universal credit In Luton South, 16,000 households may have to choose between heating and eating. According to the Institute for Public Policy Research, one in six working households cannot make ends meet. I recently met representatives of the citizens advice bureau in Luton, who told me that one of the biggest concerns they have will be the increase in personal debt as a consequence of the cut in universal credit Fundamentally, the Government should listen to the families who need this money, listen to key workers who are struggling to make ends meet, listen to the charities and civil society organisations, and cancel the cut.
Universal Credit and Working Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2021-09-15
Topic: Social Welfare
Richard Burgon (Labour, Centre-left): Late last night on social media, I invited my constituents who will be affected by this cut to write in and explain how they would be affected by it. I tell you what, my phone was buzzing all last night and all this morning with messages from distraught constituents, and it is no wonder, because 14,000 families my constituency will be affected by the cut. Two thirds of people in my constituency who work and who have children will be affected by it I want to use the time I have today to read from just one of the messages I received, a message from young woman who wrote to me and said: "Hello Richard, I’ve seen your tweet about you hopefully speaking to parliament about the cut and just thought I’d like to say how it’d affect me I was homeless from the ages 16-20 almost as I left an abusive home from my father and lost all my family and most friends I had. I finally got my own flat this year and the amount that I have been living on has the increased boost from coronavirus payment. After this has been cut I am not going to be able to afford food, phone bills, electricity/gas/wi-fi, council tax and the odd few bills like Netflix here and there. After all these payments have come out I will have about £5-£10 to live off for the month and that’s not even enough to travel for places I need to be or in case of emergencies. My mental health is at an awful place at the moment and I’m trying to attend counselling for it but my anxiety and depression are so bad that I can’t work right now." [Interruption.] I hear chuntering and I see grinning from people on the Government Benches I think it lets the Tories off the hook to say that they do not know the reality and that they do not live in the real world. In a way, they do. They know that this is the effect, but they are not bothered. They are taking the immoral choice, the shameful choice to stick the boot into the people we as a society should be supporting. That is a disgrace in one of the richest countries in the world. This is the choice that they have made. Don’t make this cut.
Universal Credit and Working Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2021-09-15
Topic: Social Welfare
Kim Marie Johnson (Labour, Centre-left): This cut to universal credit is perhaps one of the most callous and cruel policies this Government have proposed, and we have a long list to choose from. After more than a decade of brutal austerity measures and chronic Tory mismanagement, absolute poverty and child poverty were soaring even before the devastating impact of the pandemic. In my Liverpool, Riverside constituency, where child poverty, relative poverty and absolute poverty already soar above the national average, it amounts to more than 3,200 families and nearly 6,000 children This draconian Tory Government are dangerously out of touch with the reality of millions. They have no comprehension of the reality of poverty, of missing meals and going cold. They claim that the need for fiscal responsibility overrides the need for just and fair policies, as if the two are mutually exclusive and as if economic prosperity cannot exist without inequality and poverty. The cut of £1,000 from the pockets of those most in need is the ugly face of that ideology of class warfare—let us call it what it is As a black, working-class woman born and raised in Liverpool, I know full well the impact of this class warfare. Thatcher’s policies of managed decline in the 1980s threaten to pale by comparison with the cruelty of this Tory Government. The bare, honest truth is that this cut is not fiscally competent. Hitting workers’ spending power with cuts to universal credit, a rise in national insurance contributions, a public sector pay freeze and a personal income tax freeze is not the economic competence that the Tories claim. It is the opposite Instead of taking money out of the pockets of those most in need, the Government must wake up to the reality facing millions of families who will be pushed into Dickensian levels of poverty and misery. I call on Members on both sides of the House to cancel this cut.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Joint Committee — House of Commons, 2021-09-15
Topic: International Affairs
Lisa Eva Nandy (Labour, Centre-left): I beg to move, (1) That it is expedient: (a) that a Joint Committee of Lords and Commons be appointed for the remainder of the current session to consider: (i) Government policy on Afghanistan from the Doha Agreement in February 2020 to the conclusion of Operation Pitting on 27 August 2021; (ii) The intelligence assessments made of the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan during this period, the extent to which those assessments were accurate, and the decisions taken by Ministers in response to that intelligence; (iii) The ARAP scheme, including eligibility for the scheme, and policy towards civilian resettlement; (iv) The planning of the Government, including any contingency planning, the crisis management process of the Government, and planning for the availability of Ministers if the situation deteriorated; (b) that the Chair of the Committee shall be a backbench Member of a party represented in Her Majesty’s Government and shall be elected by the House of Commons under arrangements approved by Mr Speaker (2) That a Select Committee of eight Members be appointed to join with any committee to be appointed by the Lords for this purpose (3) That the Committee should publish its first report no later than 31 March 2022 (4) That the Committee shall have power: (a) to send for persons, papers and records; (b) to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House; (c) to report from time to time; (d) to appoint specialist advisers; and (e) to adjourn from place to place within the United Kingdom (5) That the quorum of the Committee shall be three (6) That, in addition to the Chair elected under paragraph (1)(b) above, the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, the Chair of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy and the Chairs of the Defence Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Home Affairs Committee, the International Development Committee and the International Trade Committee shall be members of the Committee This has been a painful few weeks. The chaotic end to 20 years in Afghanistan left hundreds of British citizens and thousands of Afghans behind. Two decades of work, the transformation of the economy through landmine clearance, the improvements to healthcare, media freedom and the education of millions of girls are now at risk as the Taliban regime returns. A generation of young Afghans are watching the future they were promised disappear before their eyes. We owe it to them, to the 150,000 brave military personnel, to the families of 457 British soldiers who never made it home and to our diplomats and aid workers who fought for a better future, to tell the truth about what went wrong over the past 18 months and what is still going wrong at the heart of Government, and to do everything in our power to support the people of Afghanistan and secure the safety of British people.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Joint Committee — House of Commons, 2021-09-15
Topic: International Affairs
Lisa Eva Nandy (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Member for his intervention and say to him that I absolutely accept that lessons have to be learned from the experience in Afghanistan over the past 20 years. There are a range of views in this House about the decisions taken over two decades by successive Governments on different sides of the Atlantic. All of us in this House should approach that inquiry with a level of humility and introspection. That does not mean we cannot learn the lessons right now from what has happened over the past 18 months, and learn them quickly In 20 years, not a single attack has been launched against us from Afghanistan. Those gains must be protected. We need to learn lessons and chart a course for the future. We deserve to know why for years successive Conservative Governments have dragged their heels over the resettlement of Afghan interpreters. One of my hon. Friends still has an interpreter who is in hiding and is being hunted door-to-door by the Taliban. We deserve to know why, when the Government had 18 months to plan, they were so completely unprepared that troops had to be sent into danger to pull people through crowds and on to planes.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Joint Committee — House of Commons, 2021-09-15
Topic: International Affairs
Karen Patricia Buck (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Many of us on the Opposition Benches and across the House will have constituents who have family members in Afghanistan—for example, I have a mother whose husband and two of her children are in Kabul, left behind in the chaos. While I pay tribute to the bravery of people who were working on the frontline, does my hon. Friend share my concern that we have heard so little from the Government over these weeks? Those desperate families are simply not getting the information or advice that we all need.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Joint Committee — House of Commons, 2021-09-15
Topic: International Affairs
Lisa Eva Nandy (Labour, Centre-left): I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her work on behalf of her constituents and their family members in Afghanistan. Members across the House have been working tirelessly to raise cases with the Government only to be told suddenly—despite the Prime Minister’s promise that we would all receive answers by last Monday—that we should not send emails and that not a single one would receive a response. It is disgraceful We deserve to know why, when the Foreign Office’s own assessment warned on 22 July that the Taliban were advancing rapidly, no action was taken, and why the Foreign Secretary appeared not to be aware of the report when it was raised with him by the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat). We deserve to know why the Foreign Office crisis centre was set up after Kabul had fallen, why crucial papers identifying local employees were left abandoned on an embassy floor and why thousands of emails from Members of this House addressing urgent cases are sitting unopened and unread in inboxes Ministers still come to the Dispatch Box unable to answer basic questions such as how many British nationals have been left behind, Departments are still unable to pick up the phone to each other to resolve basic issues, and the Prime Minister pledges that all cases will receive a response within hours but, weeks later, it has not been done. It is disgraceful. Lives are at risk.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Joint Committee — House of Commons, 2021-09-15
Topic: International Affairs
Eleanor Claire Reeves (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend mentions the plight of British nationals still stuck in Afghanistan. I have 11 such constituents, including an 18-month-old baby, yet the Government refuse to respond when we email them. Does she agree that that is completely unacceptable and that they must put a plan together urgently to get these British nationals home?
Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Joint Committee — House of Commons, 2021-09-15
Topic: International Affairs
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): Is there not another issue? Lots of the people about whom many hon. Members have been writing to three Departments—let us hope that, as I think the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa said last week, we will get the reply from the Foreign Office, which will apparently be by the end of tomorrow—will now need consular support from somewhere, either in country or out of country. However, as I understand it, the Government have done nothing to make that provision available to them. Unlike what the Americans are doing, it feels like we have given in and surrendered.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Joint Committee — House of Commons, 2021-09-15
Topic: International Affairs
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): I have two quick questions. First, how many British nationals does the Minister think are still in Afghanistan? Secondly, if other people—Afghan nationals—are going to be helped out, some of them will still need consular support because they will need visas or permits to travel. How do we intend that that support be given? Are we doing that through another nation state? Are we going to be able to do that from out of country? What is the plan?
Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Joint Committee — House of Commons, 2021-09-15
Topic: International Affairs
Seema Malhotra-Saluja (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for giving way and particularly for his update on his discussions with other countries, including Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, which are a very important part of the puzzle. I want to make two specific points. First, there is a new form on the Foreign Office website for British nationals in Afghanistan to register, but when I asked the Foreign Secretary about whether that form needed to be completed again by British nationals who have already notified the Foreign Office that they are still there, he said he did not know and suggested I ask the Minister. So I would be grateful if the Minister could update the House on whether British nationals still in Afghanistan—this is a very important point—have to fill out another form to be on the Foreign Office’s register Secondly, I want to ask about Afghan nationals who are at risk. A particular example is someone who worked as a BBC journalist who is in hiding at the moment with her children. What advice should I be giving her right now? She is a relative of a constituent and at serious risk at this moment.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Joint Committee — House of Commons, 2021-09-15
Topic: International Affairs
Kevan David Jones (Labour, Centre-left): No, I do not agree, because the intelligence will be there—the Joint Intelligence Committee report and others—and we will be able to see that. We have not publicly announced that we are going to hold an inquiry, because that would be wrong before we have seen the intelligence. The Minister has assured us today that the Committee will get that information, which will be important before we make those decisions. I understand the good intentions with the proposed Committee, but the motion has been fatally drafted by the inclusion of the intelligence element As a long supporter of the Select Committee system in this House, I share some of the concerns of the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat). I sit on the Defence Committee, which has already instigated an inquiry looking at the military’s involvement in that short period This is a mess, and it is right that the Government are held to account. I share the anger that many Members from all parts of the House feel at having been ignored in trying to do their job representing their constituents and trying to get people out of very desperate situations. The Minister’s blasé approach does not help. We are elected to represent our constituents here. This situation has created a huge amount of pressure on many Members of Parliament who have large numbers of individuals involved, as well as on our staff. The Foreign Office has to learn lessons. One of the biggest mistakes was dividing the issue between three Departments. Those lessons need to be learned, and Members of Parliament have to be listened to. Our emails and letters cannot just be ignored and treated as other representations to the Foreign Office If those things are done, that will improve the situation, but the lessons have to be learned, and the actions and the scrutiny have to be done. In terms of intelligence, the only Committee that can do that is the ISC. We will wait to see what the intelligence assessment says, and then we will take those decisions. That is why I feel I cannot support this motion tonight.