argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-09-15
Topic: Labor
Seema Malhotra-Saluja (Labour, Centre-left): I will make a little progress, and then I will give way Far from increasing work incentives, these measures will reduce them. Reducing the work allowances or thresholds and increasing the taper rates mean families will have their incomes reduced earlier and more quickly than would otherwise have been the case.
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-09-15
Topic: Macroeconomics
Seema Malhotra-Saluja (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for his intervention. He may first want to explain why he voted against the national minimum wage when it was put to this House. We agree about people needing to come off tax credits, but we would do that through an increase in wages and in productivity The Government have sought to argue that working people will be compensated for the cuts by the increases in the minimum or living wage. That is contested by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which says that it is "arithmetically impossible". Although we welcome the increase to the personal allowance and the introduction of the so-called national living wage, as the Low Incomes Tax Reform Group has stated, any gains from those measures will not negate the impact of these tax credit cuts from April 2016. The IFS recently concluded that families will lose over £1,000 a year on average from cuts to tax credits, while they will gain between £100 and £200 a year at most from the proposed national living wage, and even that is seen as optimistic The IFS analysis has also shown that those on the lowest incomes are hit hardest by the Government’s tax and benefits changes. The reduction in annual income over the next five years is most marked for the poorest four income decile groups, highlighting the regressive nature of this Government’s fiscal choices.
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-09-15
Topic: Macroeconomics
Seema Malhotra-Saluja (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman continues to miss the point. We cannot remove tax credits in that way without ensuring first that there is an increase in wages for families so that they can support themselves and not see an increase in household debt.
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-09-15
Topic: Macroeconomics
William Roffen Esterson (Labour, Centre-left): On that point, the Institute for Fiscal Studies figures that were given to the Treasury Committee show that the average gain is only £200 for the 8.4 million working age households who are estimated to lose £750 through this measure. Does that not show that the Conservatives’ claim of being the party of working people is a complete fraud?
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-09-15
Topic: Macroeconomics
Seema Malhotra-Saluja (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend has made his point incredibly well. I now wish to make some progress The IFS has also shown that those on the lowest incomes are being hit the hardest by the Government’s tax and benefits changes. It is also of great concern that many tax credit claimants will not be aware of the cuts and will suffer additional hardship from April without any time to adjust their budgets. Cuts in families’ income will have wider economic impacts. For example, the changes will hit local businesses, and less will be spent in our local shops It is staggering that the Budget document did not include a distributional analysis of the impact of the Chancellor’s spending decisions. It is no wonder that people believe that that was deliberate and part of the intent to hide the impact of these changes. That pattern has continued today.
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-09-15
Topic: Social Welfare
Alison McGovern (Labour, Centre-left): Was my hon. Friend as astounded as I was to hear the Minister say that these changes protect those with the least and are being paid for by those with the most? Not only have the London School of Economics and the IFS demonstrated that the Government have hit those in the lower half of the income distribution, but I have evidence of a real family in Merseyside who will be £32 a week worse off. Does that not prove that what the Government are saying is a falsehood?
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-09-15
Topic: Macroeconomics
Seema Malhotra-Saluja (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I can guarantee that all Members in this House will see more people with exactly the same problems in their advice surgeries The pattern has continued with no Government impact assessment for the statutory instrument that we are debating today. The Low Incomes Tax Reform Group has emphasised that fact along with the Social Security Advisory Committee, which complained in a letter last week about the lack of information that it was given on these regulations and the impact of the changes. It also said that more information should be made available to Parliament to allow for proper scrutiny. It said: "In the case of the Tax Credits (Income Thresholds and Determination of rates) (Amendment) Regulations, which are affirmative, we would expect Parliament to want more detailed information that clearly explains the changes and potential impacts to ensure that they can be subject to effective scrutiny. We would encourage you to take those steps to make that material available for that purpose." The Members who are here today have no official information from the Government about the impact of the changes on which they are voting. I am talking about the impact that those changes are likely to have on their constituents. Instead, we have to use the IFS figures, which are the most authoritative figures available.
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-09-15
Topic: Social Welfare
Seema Malhotra-Saluja (Labour, Centre-left): I will not give way These measures will hit families with children the hardest and impact on child poverty at a time when the Government are also abandoning their commitment to eradicating child poverty by 2020, and effectively abolishing the child poverty watchdog. The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission’s remit will now just be social mobility. Tax credits have played an enormous role in tackling child poverty. I hope that Government Members will think twice before they go through the Lobby tonight.
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-09-15
Topic: Social Welfare
Seema Malhotra-Saluja (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman’s constituents will certainly be pleased to hear him raising their concerns about the likely impact of these changes on their incomes. I hope that he will engage—[Hon. Members: "Answer!"] He has heard the answer before from the Labour party. We certainly would not give tax cuts to the very wealthy in this country, which his party has had a good record of doing over the past five years Around 10 million people—a sixth of the population—will be affected by these changes. Every Member in the House represents some of those who will be hit—around half the working families in our constituencies. However, it is heartening to read in media reports today that at least five Members on the Government Back Benches are planning to vote against the changes. We have also heard reports, cited by the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, that the Chancellor spent yesterday talking to anxious Tory MPs and urging them not to defeat him in the vote today, after they took him at his word when he said that the Government represented low-paid workers. I am sorry that Conservative Back Benchers feel let down by their Chancellor, but it is not too late for the Government to change their mind It is disappointing that the Government have failed to tackle the real drivers of welfare spending—notably, low pay and the high cost of rent. That failure caused the Department for Work and Pensions to overspend by £25 billion over the last Parliament. The Chancellor has slashed entitlement to housing benefit, including through the bedroom tax and the benefit cap, yet the number of working people being paid housing benefit has still risen by 400,000 since 2010 because working people are not bringing home enough money to pay the rent. The number of people paid less than a living wage has risen by 45% since 2009, with 4.9 million workers today being paid less than the living wage This week the Government also launched the most sustained attack on rights at work in 30 years. The Trade Union Bill amounts to a suppression of the democratic rights of ordinary people, and the Government’s cuts to tax credits are a disgraceful attack on the incomes of families up and down the country. Labour would bring down welfare spending not by punishing the most vulnerable but through supporting a higher wage economy, introducing a real £10-an-hour living wage, tackling high rents by addressing the housing crisis, and supporting trade unions to ensure fair pay The proposed changes arguably represent the largest single cut to family incomes ever implemented by a Government. I hope that Conservative Members will search their consciences on this issue and vote with their hearts and their heads by joining us in the No Lobby today.
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-09-15
Topic: Labor
Clive Anthony Lewis (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman talks about high productivity and high wages, and Labour Members would agree with him on that, but yesterday we watched him file through the Lobby and vote against trade unions. They are one of the key ways that we can raise people’s wages, and he is undercutting them. How does he explain that?
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-09-15
Topic: Macroeconomics
Frank Field (Labour, Centre-left): I wrote to the Prime Minister to ask for this debate on the Floor of the House for a number of reasons. First, this is the most important aspect of the first Conservative Budget for many years; I have forgotten how many. Yet, by the nature of how the authorities decide how we give or withhold authority, we were not able to vote on the biggest change proposed in that Budget. I therefore think it important that we have the opportunity to debate it, and I am grateful to the Prime Minister for giving the whole House the chance to debate the "crown jewel" of the first Conservative Budget The second reason has already begun to erupt on the Conservative Benches. Not only is this the most significant fiscal change a Conservative Government have made, but it affects disproportionately the poor. Many Members will want to put on the record their disquiet with the Government—not just Labour Members, as one would expect, but Conservative Members, too The figures speak for themselves. We are talking about people at the bottom of the income pile. Just one headline figure tells us that well over 3 million of the lowest paid workers in this country will lose in the region of £1,300 a year. That might affect the standard of living of MPs; it will certainly affect the standard of living of many of our constituents and the choices that they will be able to make, whether they are represented by Opposition or Government Members.
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-09-15
Topic: Macroeconomics
Frank Field (Labour, Centre-left): I will not, partly because I am anxious that other Members have the opportunity to contribute I am surprised that the Chancellor is not present—this was my main reason for calling for this debate—because he was clearly the architect of the Budget. He is the most political Chancellor I have known in my whole period in the House of Commons. In the lead-up to the last election, and during it and since, he managed to push Labour into a very unpleasant corner where we were the welfare party and the Conservatives were the party of the strivers. In one single move, he has destroyed his 2020 election strategy. We heard the Chancellor’s very powerful speeches saying that the Conservative party was in favour of individuals who, when they got up in the morning to do grotty jobs for very low pay, passed the windows with the curtains still drawn of their neighbours on benefits. Individuals in this country who still get up with the work motive, which is so important for both economic and human advance, will know as they pass the windows with the curtains drawn that they do so with, on average, £1,300 a year less in their pocket It is an advantage to debate this proposed change in the House. The Government may not be harmed that much in the vote, but this issue will rumble and then catch fire in Members’ constituencies when the cuts come through. If Mrs Thatcher would bend under pressure from her Back Benchers when they did not like what they were hearing in their constituencies, I would be very surprised if our most political Chancellor did not bend like her.
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-09-15
Topic: Labor
Karen Patricia Buck (Labour, Centre-left): Before the election, the Prime Minister promised to maintain the value of tax credits. He has broken that promise. He also said on 22 April that the Government were "using all the tools at our disposal", including the "tax and benefit system", to "make work pay". Today, we are debating the betrayal of that pre-election commitment As we have heard, 3 million working households will lose up to £1,000 each and a single-parent earner on £19,000—a modest income—will lose £2,000. Many extrapolations that are set out in the House of Commons briefing paper and elsewhere show the scale of the losses Today, we have heard from Government Members the argument that tax credits are a subsidy for bad employers. In some instances, that is true, but there is scant evidence for the assertion across the board. What is absolutely clear is that the tax credit system is an incentive, particularly for lone parents, to go into the workplace and stay in work. The positive employment incentive of the tax credit system has been almost entirely ignored by the Conservative party. That masks a success story over the past 10 to 15 years, which has seen a dramatic increase in the number of parents, particularly lone parents, going into the workplace. We should celebrate that fact and support those working parents who have gone into work. A recent piece of research by the New Policy Institute, "Trends in parental employment in London", demonstrates that success story in employment. Associated with that, there has been a "large shift away from out of work claims towards in-work claims" A rise in the national minimum wage is welcome—indeed, employers should share with the state the responsibility for ensuring that working people enjoy a decent basic income—but it will not offset the huge hit on tax credits. As the analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies has shown, the new national living wage offers "little compensation because the boost to gross wages is smaller than the announced fiscal tightening and almost one-third of the increase in gross wages goes to the Treasury in higher tax receipts and lower benefits and tax-credit entitlements." The IFS calculates that across the entire population that receives in-work benefits and tax credits, just 20% of the losses that will accrue from the benefit cuts will be returned to those people through the rise in the minimum wage.
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-09-15
Topic: Social Welfare
Karen Patricia Buck (Labour, Centre-left): I will not give way because many people want to speak My particular concern is that London has the highest level of child poverty of any region in the country and, with 356,000 families receiving tax credits, almost 750,000 children will be losers as a result of this policy. A study by the Trust for London on the higher costs that are faced by working people and parents in London, which has just come out, shows that even before the tax credit cuts, such families are £54 a week worse off than equivalent families outside London. These cuts will hit the working poor right across the country, but they will hit them harder in London than anywhere else As we look towards the election that we will fight next May, I absolutely guarantee that my colleagues will draw attention to those losses for families, and those families will not forgive this Government for betraying their commitment to protect the working poor.
Tax Credits — House of Commons, 2015-09-15
Topic: Macroeconomics
Clive Stanley Efford (Labour, Centre-left): What a mean confidence trick the Chancellor carried out in the Budget. Some 3,600 households in my constituency will be affected, including 6,600 children. The Chancellor said: "Britain deserves a pay rise and Britain is getting a pay rise."—[Official Report, 8 July 2015; Vol. 598, c. 337.] He also said that those on the national minimum wage can expect a cash increase and full-time workers can expect their incomes to go up by £5,000 a year. But we now know that the whole package is far from compensated for by the increase in the national minimum wage. People on the national minimum wage will not just be worse off next year, but the year after that, the year after that and the year after that—every year until 2021. The Library’s document tells us that on average they will worse off by £8,945 over the next five years Conservative Members cheered the Chancellor to the rafters. Did they understand that the overall package would result in the poorest workers among us having their incomes cut? The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions punched the air. Did he not understand that the overall package would result in a cut in the incomes of people on the national minimum wage? Was he being mean or is he just too stupid to be doing his job The Chancellor said in his 2010 Budget: "I am not going to hide hard choices from the British people or bury them in the small print of the Budget documents. The British public are going to hear them straight from me".—[Official Report, 22 June 2010; Vol. 512, c. 167.] What happened in the latest Budget then? The Conservatives say that theirs is the party of working people. Here are some working people: a cleaner with one child will be £31.72 a week worse off. An assistant cook will be £32.49 a week worse off, a teaching assistant £32.49 and a health care assistant £35.36—
High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-09-15
Topic: Government Operations
Tulip Rizwana Siddiq (Labour, Centre-left): I agree that constituents should be allowed to petition, but there is a fee for petitioning. Will the Minister consider getting rid of that fee to allow easy access for those who might not be financially able to petition?
High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-09-15
Topic: Transportation
John Francis Spellar (Labour, Centre-left): Will the Minister take this opportunity to comment on the stories in the weekend press that there would be a substantial increase in the cost as a result of these changes, as well as a reduction in the number of platforms for the inter-city services?
High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-09-15
Topic: Macroeconomics
John Francis Spellar (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for the comprehensive explanation he has given of the changes and the two tranches. Will he also tell us what the Department’s outline estimate is of the additional costs of these changes?
High Speed Rail (London - West Midlands) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-09-15
Topic: Transportation
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): I obviously support the motion because it is important for my constituents to have the chance to petition the Select Committee. That does not, however, mean that I support the proposals or HS2. I oppose HS2 on cost and on merit: it will not achieve its stated objectives The impact of HS2 on my constituency—on residents, businesses and the environment—will be devastating. It is a major cause of concern to very many of my constituents. Such is the concern throughout the constituency that it is raised with me daily. The plans for changes at Euston station have a long and sorry history. Standing back, we can see that not the least reason for that is that it does not make sense to bring a 21st-century, high-speed railway into a densely populated part of north London simply because that is where the conventional station is.
Child Sexual Exploitation — House of Commons, 2015-11-16
Topic: Law and Crime
Roberta Carol Blackman-Woods (Labour, Centre-left): I am sure that all of us in this House want to concur with the sentiments expressed by the Home Secretary and send our condolences and very best wishes to the families and friends of all of those who were killed or injured in the dreadful terrorist attacks on Friday night I hear what the Home Secretary says about sexual exploitation, but, according to the Children’s Society, more than three quarters of reported sexual crimes against 16 and 17 year olds result in no police action against the perpetrator. How does the Home Secretary feel that her proposed cuts to policing will impact on those figures?
Hate Crime — House of Commons, 2015-11-16
Topic: Law and Crime
Keith Anthony Vaz (Labour, Centre-left): Further to the comments of the hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), these terrible events in Paris mean that it is very important that police officers engage fully with local communities. The Government were right to suspend the operation of the police funding formula, which deals with frontline policing. Although the counter-terrorism budget has been protected, dealing with such offences means that we need bobbies on the beat. Will the Minister speak to the Home Secretary and see whether we can present an argument to the Chancellor to protect front-line policing so that the police can deal with such issues, which impact on local communities?
Hate Crime — House of Commons, 2015-11-16
Topic: Law and Crime
Stephen Twigg (Labour, Centre-left): Merseyside police have done fantastic work over the past decade or so in tackling hate crime. Does the Minister understand that there is real concern that the likely impact of spending cuts in the spending review could make it a lot harder for Merseyside police to maintain that brilliant work?
Hate Crime — House of Commons, 2015-11-16
Topic: Law and Crime
Lyn Carol Brown (Labour, Centre-left): But it is about resources. The Merseyside police and crime commissioner has said that proposed cuts "will affect the teams which fight serious and organised crime, investigate rape and sexual violence and tackle hate crime." The chief constable of that service asks if he should take resources out of teams dealing with child abuse, gun crime, hate crime, or online fraud. What is the Minister’s answer?
Violent Crime — House of Commons, 2015-11-16
Topic: Law and Crime
Karen Patricia Buck (Labour, Centre-left): The weekend before last, three young men were murdered in three separate incidents in north-west London alone, demonstrating that gang and serious youth violence remains a genuinely serious problem on the streets of London, as it is elsewhere. Next spring, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime funding for the gangs project is due to end. Will the Minister speak with the Mayor of London to ensure that that necessary funding to tackle the threat of gangs continues after next May?
Violent Crime — House of Commons, 2015-11-16
Topic: Law and Crime
Sarah Deborah Champion (Labour, Centre-left): The British crime survey shows an 87% rise in the reporting of rapes between October 2012 and March 2015. Sexual violence investigations need specialist expertise and supervision to ensure that cases are handled correctly and prosecutions are brought. What assurances can the Minister give that the proposed police cuts will not impact on the training and supervision of officers working on sexual violence cases?