argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Engagements — House of Commons, 2021-09-08
Topic: International Affairs
Questions: Will my right hon. Friend offer me an answer for my constituents of the future, as they sit around a tepid radiator powered by an inefficient and expensive air source heating unit, worrying about the payments on the electric car that they did not want either, while they watch the growing economies of the world going hell for leather building new gas and coal-powered stations? They will be asking me, “Why?” Will the Prime Minister please commit to solutions that are technologically possible to reduce Britain’s CO2, rather than uncosted commitments that—I am sorry—we will be hearing a lot of at COP26?; Does my right hon. Friend agree that while the recent extension of the grace periods for the movement of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland is welcome, it does not yet amount to a permanent fix of the Northern Ireland protocol, which Lord Trimble suggests is inimical to the Belfast agreement? Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, in the continuing negotiations, the Government will draw the attention of the EU to the positive advantages of mutual enforcement, as advocated in the recent excellent paper by the Centre for Brexit Policy?
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, and I thank both my right hon. Friend and the Centre for Brexit Policy for their analysis. It is good that the interim period has been extended, because clearly, the protocol, as it is being applied by our friends in the EU, is not, in my view, protecting the Belfast/Good Friday agreement as it should in all its aspects. We must sort it out.
Engagements — House of Commons, 2021-09-08
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: Will my right hon. Friend offer me an answer for my constituents of the future, as they sit around a tepid radiator powered by an inefficient and expensive air source heating unit, worrying about the payments on the electric car that they did not want either, while they watch the growing economies of the world going hell for leather building new gas and coal-powered stations? They will be asking me, “Why?” Will the Prime Minister please commit to solutions that are technologically possible to reduce Britain’s CO2, rather than uncosted commitments that—I am sorry—we will be hearing a lot of at COP26?; Does my right hon. Friend agree that while the recent extension of the grace periods for the movement of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland is welcome, it does not yet amount to a permanent fix of the Northern Ireland protocol, which Lord Trimble suggests is inimical to the Belfast agreement? Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, in the continuing negotiations, the Government will draw the attention of the EU to the positive advantages of mutual enforcement, as advocated in the recent excellent paper by the Centre for Brexit Policy?; The growing populations of Grantham and Stamford require a long-term integrated healthcare strategy. Can the Prime Minister confirm what action the Government are taking to implement regular reviews of healthcare provision to meet the future needs of my constituency?
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I certainly acknowledge, and I think the whole House acknowledges, the massive debt that we owe to unpaid carers such as the right hon. Gentleman. Up and down the country, we thank them for what they are doing. What the plan means is that there will be a huge injection of support, both from the private sector and from the Government, into caring across the board. I believe that that will support unpaid carers as well, since they will no longer have the anxiety, for instance, that their elderly loved ones could see the loss of all their possessions. What we are also doing for carers is making sure that we invest, now, half a billion pounds in their training, in their profession to make sure that they have the dignity and progression in their jobs that they deserve.
Infrastructure for Businesses: Weymouth — House of Commons, 2021-09-08
Topic: Law and Crime
Questions: A constituent of mine spent hours waiting to get through to someone on the Government-issued telephone number for non-British nationals in Afghanistan. Distressed and fearful for his family, he was relieved when he eventually spoke to someone. However, when the person he spoke to thought he had hung up, he overheard them laughing and saying to a colleague, “We are having to lie to people; we are giving them false hope; the whole thing is a complete scam.” Is it the Foreign Secretary, the Defence Secretary, the Home Secretary or the Prime Minister who is responsible for this scam?
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I share the indignation and the frustration of my hon. Friend at the cruel behaviour of the gangsters, the criminal masterminds, who are taking money from desperate, frightened people to help them undertake a very, very dangerous journey across the channel. This is a perennial problem, but my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is dealing with it in the best possible way, which is to make sure that they do not leave those French shores. We depend to a large extent on what the French are doing, but clearly, as time goes on and this problem continues, we are going to have to make sure that we use every possible tactic at our disposal to stop what I think is a vile trade and a manipulation of people’s hopes.
Infrastructure for Businesses: Weymouth — House of Commons, 2021-09-08
Topic: Education
Questions: A constituent of mine spent hours waiting to get through to someone on the Government-issued telephone number for non-British nationals in Afghanistan. Distressed and fearful for his family, he was relieved when he eventually spoke to someone. However, when the person he spoke to thought he had hung up, he overheard them laughing and saying to a colleague, “We are having to lie to people; we are giving them false hope; the whole thing is a complete scam.” Is it the Foreign Secretary, the Defence Secretary, the Home Secretary or the Prime Minister who is responsible for this scam?; According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, my constituency is the fourth most affected by the cut in working tax credit and universal credit. It is impacting on families who are working in multiple jobs. A thousand pounds may only just cover the cost of a single roll of wallpaper in the Prime Minister’s flat, so will he please set out his understanding of the plight of the working poor, and explain what he meant when he said that they should “see their wages rise by their own efforts”?;   Given the Education Secretary’s net approval rating among Tory supporters of minus 53, can the Prime Minister get to his feet, put his hand on his heart and promise the country, this House and his own supporters that his Education Secretary is the right person for the job and is up to the job?
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I think the whole House will recognise that the Education Secretary has done a heroic job in dealing with very difficult circumstances in which we had to close schools during the pandemic. Never forget that the job of teachers and parents up and down the land would have been made much easier if Labour, and the Labour leadership in particular, had had the guts—and if the hon. Gentleman had had the guts—to say that schools were safe.
Covid Vaccine Passports — House of Commons, 2021-09-08
Topic: Government Operations
Richard Quentin Fuller (Conservative, Centre-right): The measures presented by the Minister today are unsupportable because they are bereft of any rationale. I ask him to think carefully about whether this Government wish to take powers that were deemed to be emergency powers and make them the normal powers of a Government in a free society. I, for one, think that that is extremely unwise and that there is no case for this.
Health and Social Care Levy — House of Commons, 2021-09-08
Topic: Social Welfare
Alexander Jesse Norman (Conservative, Centre-right): That is an extraordinarily wide-ranging question, and there are many ways in which impacts could be assessed. My right hon. Friend will be aware that the Government will be bringing forward a social care Bill, and there will be a Budget at which this measure, fiscal measures in general and the wider consideration of the fiscal position will be considered. In the documents published in relation to today’s debate, there is of course a sustainability analysis of the impact of the measure on different parts of the country, by background and socioeconomic income, and there is also a substantial plan published by the Government in relation to the Health and Care Bill.
Health and Social Care Levy — House of Commons, 2021-09-08
Topic: Government Operations
Alexander Jesse Norman (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend will be aware that public sector bodies have been adjusted for in the numbers that have been published, and therefore the numbers that have been published are net of the impact on the public sector.
Health and Social Care Levy — House of Commons, 2021-09-08
Topic: Macroeconomics
Alexander Jesse Norman (Conservative, Centre-right): Of course, it is impossible to say in advance what the impact will be, but I would direct my right hon. Friend to the remarks of the Institute for Fiscal Studies where it said that "based on detailed analysis to be published later this week…this could be enough to meet the pandemic-related pressures on the NHS." I think that is a fairly—
Health and Social Care Levy — House of Commons, 2021-09-08
Topic: Macroeconomics
Alexander Jesse Norman (Conservative, Centre-right): No. I have already taken a few, and I will go on a bit further, if I may, and then I will take some more interventions. [Interruption.] Well, the hon. Gentleman has had a fairly substantial go at points of order already, and I welcome his later intervention The levy will apply UK-wide to taxpayers liable to class 1 employee and employer, class 1A, class 1B and class 4 self-employed NICs. However, it will not apply where taxpayers pay class 2 NICs or class 3 NICs. It will be introduced from April 2022, and then from April 2023 the levy will also apply to those working over the state pension age. As my hon. and right hon. Friends will understand, it takes time for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to prepare its systems for such a major shift. That is why, in 2022-23, the levy will be delivered through a temporary increase in NICs rates of 1.25% for one year only. All revenues generated by this increase will be ring-fenced and paid to NHS England, NHS Scotland, NHS Wales and the equivalent in Northern Ireland.
Health and Social Care Levy — House of Commons, 2021-09-08
Topic: Macroeconomics
Alexander Jesse Norman (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady will be aware that, because of the employment allowance, the bottom 40% of businesses will pay nothing and the next 40% will pay an average of £450. So this does not fall heavily on the bottom end of businesses, and of course it comes in a context in which the Government have provided over £400 billion of support to business and to the nation as a whole in the course of fighting the pandemic. In that sense it is, and it has been recognised to be by reputable independent commentators, a broad-based approach From April 2023, once HMRC systems have been updated, a formal legal surcharge of 1.25% will replace the temporary increase in NICs rates, which will return to their previous level. Again, this revenue will be ring-fenced in law for health and for social care only. As the Chancellor stated yesterday, this levy is no stealth tax. That is why the exact amount that each employee pays will also be visible as a separate line on their payslip. Finally, the levy will be administered by HMRC, and collected by the current reporting and collection procedures for NICs—pay-as-you-earn and income tax self-assessment.
Health and Social Care Levy — House of Commons, 2021-09-08
Topic: Social Welfare
Paul John Holmes (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Lady for giving way, and I remind her that the Conservative party won on the basis of its election manifesto, and the Labour party lost. In the interests of fairness and for the people of this country who voted for her party, will she outline to the House what the Labour party’s plan is to fix social care, because so far we have heard nothing?
Health and Social Care Levy — House of Commons, 2021-09-08
Topic: Social Welfare
Katherine Fletcher (Conservative, Centre-right): I would be interested if the hon. Lady would let us know at which point "massive global pandemic" appeared in any of the commitments made during the 2019 general election, and whether the Labour party would continue to have unfunded promises for which we would have to borrow from the market or whether they would continue to kick the can of a gnarly problem down the road. Constituents of mine have been worried about social care all summer. It is a problem that people have ducked for generations. We are doing it in a way we can afford.
Health and Social Care Levy — House of Commons, 2021-09-08
Topic: Social Welfare
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): I rise to welcome, broadly, the motion. It seems to me that social care is one of those issues that parties of both colours have grappled with for many years, yet now we are at last at the point where a Government have the courage and are sensible enough to actually come forward with some realistic proposals. As to the breaking of manifesto commitments, no party ever wishes to do that, but listening to the Opposition it seems to me as if the global pandemic never occurred, as if the economy never shrank by the greatest level since 1709 during the great frost of that year, as if millions of jobs were never imperilled, and as if this Government never had to step in fiscally in a way that probably no Government outside wartime have ever had to do, and with such positive effects When it comes to the honesty or otherwise of what the Government have done, I think they have been upfront, very clear and very honest in making it clear that they have broken that commitment, unlike, I have to say, the less straightforward way in which, repeatedly in this debate, the Opposition and the shadow Chancellor have ducked the fundamental question: what is the Opposition’s alternative plan? In response to an intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott), the shadow Chancellor, when asked why Labour had supported an increase in national insurance in 2003, said, "Well, we had a plan." I humbly remind her that that was 18 years ago. What we need to see now is a plan from the Opposition, as well as the criticism.
Health and Social Care Levy — House of Commons, 2021-09-08
Topic: Macroeconomics
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): First, the hon. Gentleman’s knowledge of my constituency is obviously rather deficient, because I expect that mine shares many characteristics in common with his. I do not dispute the fact that any major fiscal move, such as putting up national insurance and bringing in this levy in this manner, will have associated complexities and difficulties. My pledge to the House is that the Treasury Committee will, I am sure, after private discussion, decide that we wish to look more closely at a number of the issues that are being raised in this debate, including the one that he mentioned Let us be honest about the options that were available to the Treasury. How could we have squared the circle and funded £10 billion-plus a year? The first thing that the Treasury could have done is to seek to cut expenditure in other areas, yet I have no doubt that if it came forward with any proposals of that nature, the Opposition would have fiercely resisted that as austerity all over again. We have to understand that on the current projections, there are many unfunded commitments, including, for example, keeping our railways going, going for net zero, additional funding that will be needed for school catch-up and so on.
Health and Social Care Levy — House of Commons, 2021-09-08
Topic: Macroeconomics
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): I will come back to the hon. Gentleman’s point, but let me just stick with the options. The second option was to lean into growth, to assume that we could grow our way out of this problem. We have just had a huge contraction of the economy. We are not yet back up to the pre-pandemic level, although the Bank of England thinks that we may arrive at that point some time towards the end of the year, and we have many headwinds to growth ahead of us, not least the bottlenecks in supply chains, the labour shortages that we have witnessed in certain areas, and many other issues The third thing that the Treasury could have done is to borrow more money, and that is probably what the Opposition would have done in this situation. Despite the fact that the Bank of England now seems to feel that there is more money—I suspect that the Office for Budget Responsibility will confirm that around the time of the Budget— because the economy is doing a bit better than we expected, probably to the tune of about £25 billion, it would be a very brave Chancellor who started to borrow yet more and more, knowing that one day it is possible that the markets might turn around and look at the United Kingdom and decide that they no longer have confidence to lend to us. That would be a very dark day.
Health and Social Care Levy — House of Commons, 2021-09-08
Topic: Macroeconomics
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): I will not, actually, because I am very low on time That is the sword of Damocles that hangs regularly over the head of our Chancellor, so that leads us to taxation. If we look at taxation and the amounts involved here, there are only three taxes that we could consider. About two thirds of all tax is raised through income tax, national insurance and VAT. We then ask ourselves, "What criteria are we going to apply to the tax measures to test whether they are the right ones or not?" There are at least two. One is that we should look after the least advantaged in our society—the lowest-paid—and the second is that we should look after those who are the youngest, who have borne the greatest brunt of the economic consequences of the pandemic.
Health and Social Care Levy — House of Commons, 2021-09-08
Topic: Macroeconomics
Melvyn John Stride (Conservative, Centre-right): I will not—I am very short on time. We are looking to the younger generations, to some significant degree, to fund predominantly the needs of elderly people and social care. If we look at those taxes, income tax rises would have been very progressive—there is no doubt about that. We would have had to have about twice the level of increase that we are looking at with national insurance to have raised the same amount of money. I think we need—the Minister made this point—a UK-wide solution to this, not one based on income tax, where, of course, elements of income tax are devolved to other nations across the United Kingdom If we put up VAT, that would be hugely regressive, particularly at the level of income received rather than expenditure. That would therefore have been wrong. We are also up at 20%, I think—near the upper limit of where VAT should be, given the distortionary consequences of going further That inevitably leads us to national insurance, just what Labour was led to in 2003. The original proposal, it seems to me, failed both of my tests. If we just put up national insurance, it would have been regressive. It would have hit the poorest hardest, but what is right about the Chancellor’s approach is that he has extended it to those beyond the state retirement age and those receiving income by way of dividends. That critical move makes this, in general, the right approach There are many issues that the Committee will no doubt look at. One of them is that a regrettable consequence of the increase in the employer’s national insurance rate is that it will exacerbate the so-called "three people problem", whereby the different tax treatment of the employed, the self-employed and those receiving income through their own company will be widened, with consequences for IR35. I am out of time, but I support this motion today.
Health and Social Care Levy — House of Commons, 2021-09-08
Topic: Macroeconomics
Steven John Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): I wonder whether the hon. Lady has popped out to the Vote Office and picked up the distributional analysis that the Government have published, which shows the impact across the deciles of income in this country: it just does not bear out what she is saying. I encourage anybody out there to pick up that analysis and have a look.
Health and Social Care Levy — House of Commons, 2021-09-08
Topic: Social Welfare
James Jacob Gilchrist Berry (Conservative, Centre-right): Let me start by congratulating the Government on grappling with what I think is a very difficult issue—actually, it is probably "the" issue for our generation to deal with—of how we ensure that older people have dignity in their old age, and how we deal with an ageing population. However, I do not believe that the way in which we are proposing to do it, through national insurance contributions, is the correct way There are three reasons why I think this will be particularly damaging to areas such as the one that I represent. First, ours is an area with low incomes. The lower a person’s income, the more that person pays, as a proportion of that income, in national insurance contributions. The national insurance rate on incomes above £50,000—before these changes—is just 2%. So those on the lowest incomes pay the most proportionately in national insurance contributions Secondly, ours is an area with low property values. An £86,000 cap on contributions, or even a £100,000 asset floor, may be right for other parts of the country, but in my constituency, where the average property price is £170,000 or £180,000, by the time people hit that damping floor of £100,000, they would have had to pay the equivalent of 50% of their property value in care home fees.
Health and Social Care Levy — House of Commons, 2021-09-08
Topic: Macroeconomics
James Jacob Gilchrist Berry (Conservative, Centre-right): What a brilliant suggestion—one that I was about to make myself. I think that the Government should think about both the £86,000 contribution and regional house prices when considering that damping floor Thirdly, ours is an area with historically high unemployment. National insurance, as we have all called it during election campaigns, is in fact a jobs tax. It is a disincentive to the creation of new jobs, and those already in work will see, for instance, pay rises suspended as the wage bill goes up for employers just for employing people in their businesses. That is why I think that national insurance is the wrong tax to use for the people in my constituency. They are hit just as hard by this appalling social care issue as people anywhere else, but, for us, I would have much preferred it if the Government had looked at income tax, which, as we heard from the Chair of the Treasury Select Committee himself—my right hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride)— would be much less regressive.
Health and Social Care Levy — House of Commons, 2021-09-08
Topic: Macroeconomics
Miriam Joy Cates (Conservative, Centre-right): My constituency has similar house prices, and I know that my constituents share these concerns. As for the point about income tax, the advantage of taking this tax from national insurance is that the cost is shared between workers and businesses, but smaller businesses will not pay, for reasons that the Minister has already given. Is this not a better way of sharing cost across business and employees, which will actually affect lower earners in our constituencies less than the income tax alternative?