argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-03-18
Topic: Macroeconomics
Sheila Gilmore (Labour, Centre-left): We have heard the argument that if we reduce taxes, we get more revenue in. Of course, it is usually heard in relation to the 50p rate of tax, but that was a very poor example. It hardly had any effect, and so many people made their own arrangements before and after the announcement was made on reducing the rate again that we cannot tell what really happened It is important that we should have a discussion about the kind of values we want and the kind of society we want to live in. There has been a similar debate north of the border, where we have a Government who are trying to suggest that, although they do not necessarily want to cut taxes, it is possible to have fantastic services without ever putting up taxes. That will also leave the public confused about what can really be achieved.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-03-18
Topic: Labor
Sheila Gilmore (Labour, Centre-left): Tax revenues have been falling, and the whole issue about low wages is extremely important We have had discussions in the House about zero-hours contracts. I think it was the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) who said today that Labour had done nothing about them for 13 years. I was not a Member of this House at that time, but I was a local councillor for much of that period and I met people constantly in that role. In all honesty, I do not recall people raising the issue in the way that they have been doing more recently Zero-hours contracts are a growing phenomenon, and they are still under-reported. I mention them on some of the literature that I give out when I am door-knocking, and a couple of the people I have spoken to in the past few days have looked at that literature and said, "What are zero-hours contracts?" When I explained, they said, "Oh yes, that’s what my son had when he was working for a pizza house." Another man said, "Oh yes, that’s what happened to my son. The other day, he called and asked me to pick him up from work because he had gone in, only to be told to go home again because there was not enough work for him. They could do that under the terms of his contract." Those people might not have known the term "zero-hours contract", but they certainly recognised the conditions involved These issues are a matter of concern for young people. Unemployment is not falling as it should be. It is still, in the words of most commentators, "stubbornly high", and we need to do something to address the problem. Also, earnings for younger people have not risen. The Government are proud of saying that average household incomes are beginning to rise again. Those in the oldest age group have done the best, and people in the middle are beginning to do a bit better, but young people are still doing significantly less well. That is a serious matter and we should be giving it greater consideration. Many young people have a string of temporary jobs. They are in and out of jobs even when there is work available, which is very frustrating. One constituent told me that her son had worked for Royal Mail for three months at Christmas. He knew that it was a temporary job and he was told that there was no further work afterwards. He signed up with an agency that handled temping work, and he was phoned up a few weeks after Christmas and asked whether he was interested in a "call-on job"—a zero-hours contract, effectively—with Royal Mail, no less. So apparently there was no proper job on offer, but Royal Mail had none the less asked the agency to take on someone on those terms. How much better would it be for that young man if he could get a proper job that paid him a proper wage and in which he could learn a skill? We must do something for our young people. We must not sit back in apparent complacency and say that there is not a problem
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-03-18
Topic: Macroeconomics
Ifor Huw Irranca-Davies (Labour, Centre-left): Nearly every party is agreed on this, apart from some who have said that there is no need to cut the deficit. We agreed that we had to cut the deficit, but we also made it clear that we had to keep people in jobs while doing so. That is why, when I was a DEFRA Minister, we brought the funding forward and made sure that people in the Environment Agency were employed building flood defences My argument to Government Members and to the Chancellor is that there seems to be a complete disconnect. Throwing around claimant counts stats and saying that everybody has had to shoulder the burden simply does not ring not true for my constituents. Over the years, there has been an honourable tradition among those on the Government Benches of arguing for the working poor as well as others, but that seems to have disappeared over this five-year cycle. I hope that next time we will have a Government who deal with zero-hours contracts and the exploitation of agency workers, give a jobs guarantee to young people, have the sorts of initiatives that are being carried out by Labour in Wales, and build an economic recovery that benefits everybody, not just those at the top.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-03-18
Topic: Macroeconomics
Katherine Anne Green (Labour, Centre-left): I am sure that by now Government Members will recognise that the Chancellor’s Budget has not convinced my colleagues and has not convinced the country, and it will not convince my constituents. There is very little in it to return them to the confidence in the future that everyone I speak to on the doorstep tells me they desperately want. Whatever the Chancellor likes to say, low productivity, low pay, low tax receipts and high spending cuts have characterised his management of the economy until now. We heard this afternoon that such an approach is set to continue if his party returns to government in the next Parliament. Happily, we do not expect that to happen The Chancellor has taken a series of quite deliberate fiscal choices that have favoured the better-off, whether it is reducing the top rate of income tax or introducing the marriage tax allowance. The latter benefits only couples who are well off enough to be paying tax at all, and, what is more, only one in five of the couples who will benefit are raising children. Middle-income families have been squeezed repeatedly under this Government. My constituents report a pervasive feeling of insecurity and a deep concern for the future of young people. Most distressingly of all, the very poorest have been pushed to the very margins of our society. There was a shocking rise in food banks from 60,000 visits in 2010 to nearly 1 million in 2013-14, and there was a 55% rise in homelessness and people sleeping on the streets between 2010 and 2014. I am sure that hon. Members cannot have escaped noticing that, as I have, including on their way home from this place in the evening The Chancellor repeated this afternoon the claim, which Government Members often make, that child poverty has fallen under this Government. Let us put the record straight: it has fallen in only one year under this Government—2010-11—which was before a single coalition fiscal policy had taken effect. Since then, it has flatlined at 2.3 million children, and the IFS has predicted that, under the measures the Government have already announced, it will rise by 700,000 children during the next Parliament. The fall in the first year of this Parliament was wholly and solely the result of the 2010 Labour Budget, since when median incomes have stagnated. Government Members used not to like the relative poverty measure for exactly the reason that it was bound up with what happened to middle incomes. I notice that they are not so vocal against the relative poverty measure now. They may now want to look at other measures of poverty, but it is an absolute disgrace that absolute poverty has risen under this Government for the first time since measurement of that element of poverty began, while material deprivation has also risen.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-03-18
Topic: Macroeconomics
Willie Bain (Labour, Centre-left): Does my hon. Friend share my astonishment, and that of other Labour colleagues and indeed the whole country, that to try to persuade us people were better off the Chancellor used a metric that deals only with mean incomes—skewed to people at the very top of the income scale—and includes universities, which are not of course households?
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-03-18
Topic: Macroeconomics
Ifor Huw Irranca-Davies (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making an eloquent speech. What does she make of the study by the Children’s Society and the StepChange charity, which points to 86,000 families in Wales—23% of the total number of families—who are failing to keep up with household bills and loan repayments, and the response of a Wales Office spokesman who said, "The UK Government’s long-term economic plan is working"? Where have we heard that before?
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-03-18
Topic: Social Welfare
Luciana Clare Goldsmith (Berger) (Labour, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He and I have been campaigning on this issue for many years, because we do not believe that in the sixth-richest nation in the world we should have any food banks, let alone the number that we have across all four nations. The fact is that just under 1 million people have had to access emergency food aid for themselves and for their children—all too often it is children who are affected. It is not just people who are out of work, but people in work, often on zero-hours contracts, who are struggling from week to week. People deserve better. I reflect on the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) on the increase in absolute poverty. I am ashamed to live in the sixth-richest nation in the world, when we have seen an increase in absolute poverty in 2015 I represent Liverpool Wavertree in north-west England. We heard in the Budget that cuts to local authorities are coming down the line. I have very serious concerns about what will happen to local authorities, particularly in the north-west where already we have experienced cuts 75% higher than in other parts of the country. Yet another report came out last week, showing that Liverpool has seen a reduction of £390 a head in funding since 2011, while in the south Wokingham has seen a cut of just £2.29. Our budget in Liverpool has been cut by 58% in real terms since 2011. That is £329 million. Page 130 of the OBR report states that we should expect a much sharper squeeze on local authorities’ real spending in the next Parliament. I shudder at what that will mean for my constituents and residents across Liverpool and the north-west. I am concerned about what will happen to our libraries, our social care and our children’s centres Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Mark Lancaster.) Debate to be resumed tomorrow.
Business without Debate — House of Commons, 2015-03-18
Topic: Government Operations
Dawn Primarolo (Labour, Centre-left): With the leave of the House, we shall take motions 10 to 12 together Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)), Local Government That the draft Greater Manchester Combined Authority (Amendment) Order 2015, which was laid before this House on 25 February, be approved Community Infrastructure Levy That the draft Community Infrastructure Levy (Amendment) Regulations 2015, which were laid before this House on 2 February, be approved Environmental Protection That the draft Single Use Carrier Bags Charges (England) Order 2015, which was laid before this House on 21 January, be approved.—(Mark Lancaster.) Question agreed to. Motion made, Infrastructure Planning That the draft Infrastructure Planning (Radioactive Waste Geological Disposal Facilities) Order 2015, which was laid before this House on 12 January, be approved.—(Mark Lancaster.) The Deputy Speaker’s opinion as to the decision of the Question being challenged, the Division was deferred until Wednesday 25 March (Standing Order No.41A).
Business without Debate — House of Commons, 2015-03-18
Topic: Energy
Dawn Primarolo (Labour, Centre-left): With the leave of the House, we shall take motions 14 to 17 together Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)), Electricity That the draft Electricity and Gas (Market Integrity and Transparency) (Criminal Sanctions) Regulations 2015, which were laid before this House on 22 January, be approved That the draft Renewables Obligation Closure (Amendment) Order 2015, which was laid before this House on 27 January, be approved That the draft Emissions Performance Standard Regulations 2015, which were laid before this House on 2 February, be approved That the draft Contracts for Difference (Allocation) (Amendment) Regulations 2015, which were laid before this House on 23 February, be approved.—(Mark Lancaster.) Question agreed to.
Business without Debate — House of Commons, 2015-03-18
Topic: Law and Crime
Dawn Primarolo (Labour, Centre-left): With the leave of the House, we shall take motions 21 to 23 together Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)), Criminal Law, Northern Ireland That the draft Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (Northern Ireland) (Biometric data) Order 2015, which was laid before this House on 29 January, be approved Proceeds of Crime That the draft Restraint Orders (Legal Aid Exception and Relevant Legal Aid Payments) Regulations 2015, which were laid before this House on 2 February, be approved National Crime Agency That the draft Crime and Courts Act 2013 (National Crime Agency and Proceeds of Crime) (Northern Ireland) Order 2015, which was laid before this House on 29 January, be approved.—(Mark Lancaster.) Question agreed to. Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)), Broadcasting That the draft Broadcasting Act 1996 (Renewal of Local Radio Multiplex Licences) Regulations 2015, which were laid before this House on 5 February, be approved.—(Mark Lancaster.) Question agreed to.
Business without Debate — House of Commons, 2015-03-18
Topic: Law and Crime
Dawn Primarolo (Labour, Centre-left): With the leave of the House, we shall take motions 25 to 29 together Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)), Criminal Law That the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 (Code of Practice) Order 2015, dated 28 January 2015, a copy of which was laid before this House on 29 January, be approved Legal Services That the draft Legal Services Act 2007 (Warrant) (Licensing Authority) Regulations 2015, which were laid before this House on 26 January, be approved That the draft Legal Services Act 2007 (Warrant) (Approved Regulator) Regulations 2015, which were laid before this House on 26 January, be approved Insolvency That the draft Insolvency Act 1986 (Amendment) Order 2015, which was laid before this House on 15 January, be approved That the draft Insolvency (Protection of Essential Supplies) Order 2015, which was laid before this House on 9 February, be approved.—(Mark Lancaster.) Question agreed to.
Sainsbury's roadworks in Belgrave (Leicester) — House of Commons, 2015-03-18
Topic: Transportation
Keith Anthony Vaz (Labour, Centre-left): I wish to present a petition signed by 120 residents and business owners who continue to be inconvenienced by overrunning roadworks around Belgrave in my constituency. The petition was co-ordinated by local volunteers in the area, led by the lord mayor, Councillor John Thomas, Councillor Manjula Sood and prospective councillor Mansukhlal Chohan. We expected the works to be completed by now. Even though they are in their final phase, they are not completed The petition states: The Petition of residents of Leicester East, Declares that the delayed roadworks in Belgrave, Leicester, which are part of an agreement made between Sainsbury’s and Leicester City Council, are causing significant problems for businesses and residents in the area The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to investigate this case, and call upon Sainsbury’s to honour their commitments and expedite the completion of these works. The Petitioners require assurances these roadworks and surrounding problems are addressed before seriously impacting residents and businesses over the Christmas period And the Petitioners remain, etc [P001453]
School Funding — House of Commons, 2015-06-15
Topic: Education
John Healey (Labour, Centre-left): Good value for public money is arguably as important as the funding formula. Does the Secretary of State accept that earlier this year the Public Accounts Committee produced a damning report on the deficiencies in the oversight and accountability system in our schools, made much worse by the headlong rush to academies? What steps are there in her Education and Adoption Bill to deal with the long list of flaws in the system?
School Funding — House of Commons, 2015-06-15
Topic: Education
Louise Margaret Haigh (Labour, Centre-left): Mossbrook primary school, a special educational needs school in my constituency, cannot put drawing pins in its walls for fear of disturbing asbestos, and it cannot access the condition improvement fund because it is not an academy. Will the Secretary of State consider opening up that fund to non-academy schools?
School Funding — House of Commons, 2015-06-15
Topic: Education
Katherine Anne Green (Labour, Centre-left): Trafford is a relatively wealthy local authority, but there are areas of serious deprivation, and schools in my local authority are funded to a much lower level per head than those in neighbouring authorities. What will the Secretary of State do to ensure that schools with high levels of deprivation among their intake are covered by a fair funding formula?
School Funding — House of Commons, 2015-06-15
Topic: Education
Questions: Will my right hon. Friend agree to receive a delegation from West Sussex, a county that has been significantly badly treated in local settlements? Is she aware that, during the general election, a number of headteachers asked to see Members in Mid Sussex, and it is clear that, unless there is a move towards a national funding formula, schools in Mid Sussex and West Sussex will continue to be significantly badly treated?
Robert Charles Douglas Flello (Labour, Centre-left): Even within an area there can be inequalities of funding. May I use this opportunity to draw the right hon. Lady’s attention to a letter written by a number of north Staffordshire Members requesting a meeting so that we can discuss urgently our concerns about funding for local schools?
Academy Sponsorship Programme — House of Commons, 2015-06-15
Topic: Education
Marie Elizabeth Rimmer (Labour, Centre-left): When a school has been rated inadequate by Ofsted and is therefore subject to an academy order, the Government say there will be no requirement to consult on conversion to academy status. With that in mind, what are the merits of removing the right of parents to be consulted, and how does that sit with the Government’s rhetoric on accountability to parents?
School Buildings — House of Commons, 2015-06-15
Topic: Education
Keith Anthony Vaz (Labour, Centre-left): May I congratulate the Minister on his reappointment? I remind him that this is not just investment in buildings, but the facilities around buildings. Last Friday, I accepted a petition from 300 parents of the Krishna Avanti school and St Paul’s Catholic school about the lack of crossing facilities in Spencefield Lane. Can we look at that as part of the budget?
School Buildings — House of Commons, 2015-06-15
Topic: Education
Kevin Denis Brennan (Labour, Centre-left): At the start of the last Parliament, the Government set out their plans for the Priority School Building programme for 537 schools. To date, 25 have been completed. Would the Minister describe his Department’s performance as failing or just coasting?
Childcare — House of Commons, 2015-06-15
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: On Friday, I visited St Cuthbert’s Church of England infant school in Wells, where the head and her staff are doing a fantastic job not only in educating the children but in providing before and after-school care for them. Will the Minister share with the House his plans to give the teachers of that school the resources they need to provide that vital service for working parents?
Barry John Sheerman (Labour, Centre-left): I urge the Minister to talk to the National Day Nurseries Association, which is based in my Huddersfield constituency, because it is very worried. Members all around this House want there to be more affordable childcare, but the NDNA is worried about the cost implications, because the money does not add up; about the pressure on building new facilities; and about the recruitment of staff. Those are real concerns, so will he talk to the NDNA?
Children in Care — House of Commons, 2015-06-15
Topic: Social Welfare
Emma Louise Lewell-Buck (Labour, Centre-left): Despite what the Minister says, local authority cuts have had disastrous consequences for children’s social care services. Ofsted is now reporting that independent reviewing officers are so stretched that poor planning and delays for the most vulnerable children are going unchallenged. What will the Minister do to defend the service from further cuts?
Children in Care — House of Commons, 2015-06-15
Topic: Social Welfare
William Roffen Esterson (Labour, Centre-left): The Education and Adoption Bill will presumably mention adoption, but will it contain provision for improving the quality of fostering, residential children’s homes and kinship care, which in the past the Minister has agreed are incredibly important opportunities for children? This is about finding the right way forward for children, not necessarily adoption for all.
Children in Care — House of Commons, 2015-06-15
Topic: Social Welfare
Stephen James McCabe (Labour, Centre-left): I welcome the Minister back to his post. I had entertained the idea that we would swap places—but what will be will be. I am pleased he has retained this portfolio and I genuinely wish him well for the future Will the Minister give an assurance that nothing in his adoption proposals will have an adverse impact on smaller voluntary adoption agencies, which often specialise in finding families for harder-to-place children—a group the Government say the proposals are designed to help?
Failing Schools — House of Commons, 2015-06-15
Topic: Education
Peter John Kyle (Labour, Centre-left): Schools standards are the responsibility of Ofsted. As anyone involved in running schools knows, there are gross inconsistencies in how Ofsted inspects between schools. Does the Secretary of State agree, and if so what will she do to solve the problem?
Failing Schools — House of Commons, 2015-06-15
Topic: Education
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): With respect to failing schools, the Secretary of State has insisted that Uplands junior school in the Spinney Hills part of my constituency should convert to an academy. Down the road in the Eyres Monsell part of my constituency, the Samworth Academy has the worst GCSE results in the whole of Leicester—the results have gone down again—the chair of governors has resigned and there have been problems with senior staffing. Why does the Secretary of State insist on an academy in one part of my constituency, and yet is seemingly complacent about an academy in another part?
Apprenticeships — House of Commons, 2015-06-15
Topic: Labor
Elizabeth Anne McInnes (Labour, Centre-left): Figures from the House of Commons Library show that there were 440,000 apprenticeship starts in England in the last academic year, but almost 40% of those starts were made by over-25s, and starts made by under-19s have declined as a share of total starts since 2010. Why is the Minister not doing more to help young adults into apprenticeship schemes?