argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
UK Shared Prosperity Fund — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: Social Welfare
Luke Anthony Hall (Conservative, Centre-right): The point that I made to the hon. Lady last week is that we have published all the details in the technical note that is set out on gov.uk. We thought that was the right thing to do. At the spending review last year, we set out the main strategic elements of the UKSPF in the heads of terms. The funding profile will be set out at the next spending review and we will publish further details in a UK-wide investment framework later this year. In the meantime, the community renewal fund will deliver real, lasting change into communities right across the country. It will tackle inequality and deprivation in some of the communities that need it the most and were neglected for so long by Labour, and of course one of its key aims will be to work to bind together our precious Union.
Shared Prosperity Fund/Levelling-up Fund: Devolved Administrations — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: Macroeconomics
Luke Anthony Hall (Conservative, Centre-right): Along with the Secretary of State, I met the Minister for Trade, Innovation and Public Finance in the Scottish Government last month to discuss the levelling-up fund and the UK shared prosperity fund. We will continue to engage with the devolved Administrations and, importantly, with local authorities and communities in Scotland directly and wider public and private sector organisations to ensure that funding is used to best effect and to support citizens right across the country.
Shared Prosperity Fund/Levelling-up Fund: Devolved Administrations — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: International Affairs
Luke Anthony Hall (Conservative, Centre-right): I can confirm that we want to do everything possible to enhance and protect our precious Union. We will work with communities directly in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to deliver this important funding. We have already committed to providing capacity funding to local authorities in all the devolved Administrations, to get them started on preparing for these funds. We are excited about working with them, and they are excited about working with us on delivering these funds. We have had huge interest from councils and communities that want to work with us to deliver real and lasting change for their communities, and that is why there is such a high level of enthusiasm and engagement.
Shared Prosperity Fund/Levelling-up Fund: Devolved Administrations — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: Social Welfare
Luke Anthony Hall (Conservative, Centre-right): I urge the Scottish nationalist party to trust their local councils and local communities, which are so passionately engaging in this project and working with us, using the capacity funding we have committed to them to start this process. They will work with us on delivering these funds, which will tackle deprivation and enhance communities right across Scotland, and we look forward to working with them with determination and enthusiasm in the weeks, months and years ahead.
Net Zero Emissions: National Target — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: Environment
Edmund Francis Hughes (Conservative, Centre-right): The simple answer to the hon. Lady’s question is that lots of discussions have been had. This Department works very closely with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to set us on the path to ensuring that all homes and buildings meet that national net zero target. As no doubt you know, Mr Speaker, this is part of the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan to build back greener post pandemic and ensure we achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
Levelling-up Fund — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: Macroeconomics
Luke Anthony Hall (Conservative, Centre-right): The levelling-up fund will be allocated competitively and is open to all local areas. As we set out in the prospectus published at Budget, the index used for the levelling-up fund places areas in category 1, 2 or 3 based on their need for economic recovery and growth, improved transport connectivity, and regeneration.
Levelling-up Fund — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: Government Operations
Luke Anthony Hall (Conservative, Centre-right): It is published fully and frankly on the Government website. The hon. Gentleman can have a look at it; I would advise him to do so. Authorities are already receiving capacity funding, so it is not true in any way to infer that every single Scottish local authority will not receive support through this initiative. We are hugely excited about the opportunities this presents us with. We are going to be investing directly into communities. There is huge support for this funding. I strongly urge the hon. Gentleman both to read the documentation on the website and to get involved in playing a full part in the process.
Energy-efficient House Building — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: Environment
Edmund Francis Hughes (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. and learned Friend will be delighted to know that we will update the regulations relating to fuel, power and ventilation this year, in advance of the introduction of the future homes standard in 2025. But we are not waiting for 2025; in the short term, our priority will be to implement an interim 2021 part L uplift. That sounds a bit esoteric, but it means that there will be a 31% reduction in carbon production compared with the 2013 standard. With regard to the point that he makes about performance standard versus design standard, I would be delighted to meet him and his constituent to discuss that further.
Energy-efficient House Building — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: Environment
Edmund Francis Hughes (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. I am slightly disappointed, though. I thought she was going to rise to congratulate us on the social housing decarbonisation demonstrator fund, which has three excellent projects that are being progressed in Scotland. We on the Government Benches have no shortage of ambition to reach our net zero target by 2050. I look forward to working with Opposition Members to ensure we achieve that.
Local Infrastructure Investment — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: Transportation
Robert Edward Jenrick (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is right to highlight the need for transport infrastructure investment in the Milton Keynes-Oxford-Cambridge arc, which is one of the fastest growing and most economically dynamic parts of the country. I understand how important the connection is to his constituents. I know he has met the Chief Secretary of the Treasury and the rail Minister to make the case for connecting Aylesbury to East West Rail, an overall project of which I have been a long-term supporter. He is right that more homes require more infrastructure. That is why we have a £7 billion national homebuilding fund, alongside the new infrastructure levy proposed to capture more of the land value uplift and ensure that when homes are built, they are built with the appropriate infrastructure as well.
Covid-19: Support for Local Authorities — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: Government Operations
Luke Anthony Hall (Conservative, Centre-right): We have so far allocated over £9 billion directly to councils since the start of the pandemic and local authorities are expected to receive over £3 billion of additional support in 2021-22, responding both to expenditure pressures and loss of income. This takes the total support that we have committed to councils in England to tackle the impacts of covid-19 to over £12 billion.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: Government Operations
Robert Edward Jenrick (Conservative, Centre-right): I am not sure what the right hon. Lady is referring to there. When we approach the local government reorganisation, we do so only in circumstances where there is a good deal of local support. We have taken forward a small number of proposals this year, including in North Yorkshire. Those are then subject to a consultation exercise where we notify stakeholders and take great care to take note of the opinions of the local population. It then comes to a Minister under the Act for the ultimate decision. Were local government reorganisation or a devolution deal to be negotiated in the right hon. Lady’s part of the world—I know that there is some local interest—we would of course follow all those legal requirements.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: Environment
Kieran John Mullan (Conservative, Centre-right): We are all making the most of our parks at the moment, but we have also seen a surge in littering. Will the Minister join me in thanking groups including the Crewe Clean Team, the Shavington Clean Team, Nantwich Litter Action and the Great British Spring Clean’s million mile mission campaign for playing their part in battling this blight? Will he also remind councils of the need to use their powers? InYourArea has found that the number of fines issued in Cheshire East dropped last year for the third year in a row.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: Environment
Robert Edward Jenrick (Conservative, Centre-right): I am very happy to join my hon. Friend in thanking all the volunteers he mentions for their hard work. As lockdown lifts, we want the countryside to look its glorious best this spring and summer, and he is absolutely right to say that councils should be using the powers that are available to them. Littering not only blights local communities but is ultimately a criminal offence. We have raised the maximum penalty for littering to £150, and we have published guidance for local authorities on the use of their powers.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: Government Operations
Robert Edward Jenrick (Conservative, Centre-right): All ministerial engagements are already published through our regular official engagement notifications and all donations to political parties, whether that be the Labour party or the Conservative party, over the statutory amount are also published. Of course planning decisions and the production of Government policy have nothing to do with donations made to political parties and there is a complete separation of the two.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: Macroeconomics
Robert Edward Jenrick (Conservative, Centre-right): I was pleased to receive Goole’s town investment plan in January. It includes ambitious plans to diversify, to repurpose the town centre and to revitalise Goole’s economy. My officials are conducting their assessment in the usual way and I look forward to making an announcement in due course, which, if it is a positive one, will build on the excellent news we had at the Budget of a freeport in the Humber, bringing jobs and regeneration to the whole region.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: International Affairs
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): I certainly agree with the hon. Lady on her final point, on international collaboration and working together, which, along with the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister, we are working incredibly hard on. We are using the UK’s presidency of the G7 and the enthusiasm of the new Administration in Washington to try to drive international collaboration, in particular collaboration among like-minded democracies in favour of an open and transparent, science-led response to pandemics. I hope that she will concur with that approach On the new variants of concern, it is important when looking at the numbers to distinguish between community spread and spread connected to travel. By taking the action that I have just announced to put India on the red list, we are restricting yet further the likelihood of incursion from India of somebody with a new variant. However, the majority of the cases that we have seen already in this country have been picked up by the testing that we have in place now for every single passenger entering this country. That is a sign of the system working, and it is now being strengthened.
Covid-19 Update — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: Social Welfare
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, of course. We want to get back to normal for care home residents—of course we do. We are taking steps in the right direction in England. I cannot comment on the situation in Wales; that is rightly a responsibility for the Cardiff Administration. As we progress down the road map, I hope we will be able to make further progress.
European Football Proposal — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: International Affairs
Oliver James Dowden (Conservative, Centre-right): I can assure the hon. Gentleman that those meetings will be happening this week; we are in the process of setting them up. I have already discussed with Her Majesty’s ambassador to Paris having a meeting with my French opposite number later this week, and I will be seeking meetings with my Spanish and Italian opposite numbers as well.
European Football Proposal — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: Government Operations
Oliver James Dowden (Conservative, Centre-right): Somewhat unusually—although not that unusually, to be fair to the right hon. Gentleman—I agree with pretty much everything he said, and I can assure him that we will be looking at all of those options. To reassure the House, we will take robust action when it is required. We will not wait for the outcome of the fan- led review, and all the things he is talking about are the sort of things we are discussing internally in Government.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: Macroeconomics
Alexander Jesse Norman (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that I maintain a strong dialogue, through officials, and from time to time in person, with the LITRG and I have no doubt that the input it has given has been carefully considered in this regard. If he would care to write to me with his specific concern, I would be happy to pick that up as well It is right that HMRC has powers to tackle fraud and abuse of the self-employment income support scheme and that the Government provide legal clarity that SEISS grants are liable for income tax in the year of receipt. Clauses 31 and 32 will allow payments made in support of individuals and businesses by the Government to meet their objectives as far as is possible. Opposition amendments 15 and 92 are already comprehensively addressed by existing policy, and I ask that Members do not press them to a vote. Clause 33 makes changes to ensure that the repayments of business rates relief are deductible for corporation tax and income tax purposes. This ensures that any repayments of support are dealt with appropriately Taken together, these measures will help the Government to continue to support individuals and businesses through the coronavirus pandemic, and they will also begin to put the public finances on a sustainable footing as we continue to move out of the pandemic. I therefore ask that clauses 1 to 5, 24 to 26, 28, 31 to 33, 40 and 86 stand part of the Bill.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: Macroeconomics
Andrew Griffith (Conservative, Centre-right): We hear from the hon. Gentleman that his party seeks to strike out the single largest intervention that will help the recovery, in the form of the super-deduction, which businesses have already told me is mobilising incremental investment. I would be fascinated to hear his view of new clause 7, which was put forward by many of his recent colleagues, including many of those who were on the Front Bench, to increase the rate of income tax to 55%. What does he think of that?
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: Macroeconomics
Andrew Hanson Jones (Conservative, Centre-right): I am aware that time is short, so I will keep my remarks brief All of us will have been dealing with constituents facing real financial challenges over the past year. The past months have been unprecedented in their impact on family finances. People have lost jobs, been on furlough, and faced great uncertainty. It has been genuinely hard. Yet some sectors have done very well and seen growth, so the economic impact of the pandemic has fallen very unevenly. The economic consequences have also landed very quickly, but the response from the Treasury was equally quick. We are now facing the next stages of the crisis. Over the months ahead, we will be getting the economy moving again as quickly as possible, safely, so that we can get people back into work, and considering how the Government will pay for all the extra costs they have incurred As my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury said, economists have predicted that the economy will have fully restarted by April next year. I think that that is right, based on my own business experience and on conversations with businesses in my constituency and beyond. It therefore makes sense to start the recovery of the public finances then, and that is what some of the measures in this Bill do. The question for me, though, is how to do this fairly and without choking off the recovery Let me focus on one measure: personal allowances. The increases that we have seen in personal allowances over the past decade have been a key ingredient in helping some of the least well-off in our society. The allowance has nearly doubled and is one of the most generous in the world. It has been part of the broader initiative, which has been a hallmark of the past 10 years, about making work pay. It is with some caution that we should consider changes, but I will be backing these changes and urge Members to reject the Opposition amendment on this measure. It is worth remembering that nobody’s take-home pay will be less than it is now, and that this is a measure that builds over time, as will the pace of the recovery. I note that the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden), who is not in his place, commented that it is a fairer way to raise revenue than some others, and I agree with his analysis The crisis support packages have been necessary and welcome, but they come with a huge cost. There is no compassion in letting debts build up for future generations to pay off. There is no stability for Governments in failing to tackle deficits.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: Macroeconomics
Andrew Hanson Jones (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point, as he always does. I have considered that point, and I know that the Government have also considered it, but this is about striking a balance between encouraging the recovery and choking it off. Part of that recovery is ensuring that we have sound public finances. We have had two supposed once-in-a-century events in just over 10 years, and the lesson we should draw is that financial responsibility allows Governments to respond to crises at scale. That is what we have just seen here, and that has helped the finances of families across our nation when they needed it most That is also why the economic recovery, with its focus on growth and investment and on households and Government, cannot be put off. The personal allowance measure in the Bill should proceed. We should not listen to the Labour party because, quite frankly, its Members have voted against all the personal allowance increases in Budget measures over the past 10 years. We need to get the focus that we have had on saving lives back on to recovering livelihoods.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: Macroeconomics
Huw William Merriman (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you very much indeed for allowing me to contribute to this afternoon’s proceedings, Dame Rosie. I want to talk about clause 5, on the freezing of personal allowance for four years from 2021-22, the resulting amendments, which would push the freeze back by a year, and the general position across the proceedings this afternoon with regard to allowances and the freezing or otherwise of them In the six years that I have been a Member of Parliament, it has been a matter of great pride that we have reduced the personal tax allowance. It was half the level that it is now, since it was raised to £12,500. That is the highest basic personal tax allowance across all G20 countries and means that a typical taxpayer is saving £1,200 in tax. More importantly, it has really sent out the message that work pays. It is no coincidence that, as well as the increase in personal allowance and the introduction of the national living wage levels that we have, we have seen record levels of employment and record lows in unemployment. It is a great success story. The covid pandemic has put all that at risk, though,which is why I find myself in the bizarre position of supporting the personal allowances freeze and intending to vote against any amendment tabled by those on the left to delay that freeze for a year. Ultimately, if we do not do something about our finances, we will do the country a great disservice and end up costing individual taxpayers—or non-taxpayers —even more by mismanaging our national debt.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: Macroeconomics
Felicity Christiana Buchan (Conservative, Centre-right): I speak in support of clauses 6 to 14 and against the amendments. This Finance Bill needs to be a delicate balancing act. It needs to give immediate support to businesses and individuals while setting a path to rebalance our books in the medium to long term. In my view, these provisions on corporate taxation and the super deduction get that balance exactly right. The Bill defers the increase in corporation tax for two years and applies to only one in 10 businesses at 25%, but at the same time it turbocharges the incentives to invest in business now This country has had a perennial problem with productivity. We need to incentivise and encourage business investment. That business investment will help productivity, growth and innovation, and that is exactly what we need. The OBR has said that it anticipates that business investment will go up by a massive 10% as a result of this measure and, as my right hon. Friend the Minister mentioned in his introductory remarks, we will go from No. 30 in the OECD rankings for attractiveness for business investment to No. 1. That is what we need over the course of the next two years as we turbocharge this economic recovery. We need the economic recovery to be strong.
Finance (No. 2) Bill — House of Commons, 2021-04-19
Topic: Macroeconomics
Felicity Christiana Buchan (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. We need to encourage investment across the board in large, medium-sized and small firms. Productivity has lagged and we need to correct that, so I absolutely agree Let me move on to corporation tax. As I have said, we will increase corporation tax but that is delayed for two years. Corporation tax, by definition, is paid only by profitable companies. I am a low-tax Conservative, so I do not normally advocate increasing taxes, but given the exceptional amount of debt that we have rightly accrued and taken on, we need to be fiscally prudent and look to balance our books in the medium to long term. The reality is that we are very sensitive to interest rates and inflation, given the debt we have; so yes, I do think we need to do this, although it goes against the grain. However, as my right hon. Friend the Minister has said, even with the increase to 25% we still have the lowest headline corporation tax rate in the G7. I also want to point out that the measure applies only to the most profitable businesses, those that make £250,000-plus. A small business that makes profits of up to £50,000 will have no change whatsoever in its corporation tax, and businesses in between will have a tapered rate. I believe that this is an unavoidable increase in corporation tax, but it still leaves us incredibly competitive on the international stage, and it applies to only one out of 10 businesses.