argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Government's Management of the Economy — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Labor
Florence Eshalomi (Labour, Centre-left): The last decade has seen huge changes to our economy and the way we work, most notably the advent of the gig economy, characterised by short-term contracts or freelance work instead of permanent jobs. It is a work force dominated by women and workers from black and minority communities. That type of economy works well for people who can choose where, when and how they work, but it does not work for everyone—those who have no choice but to take whatever low-paid, insecure work they can get. This pandemic has revealed and exacerbated deep structural inequalities in Britain today, and it has also created winners and losers. Public Health England found that black and minority ethnic communities were more likely to live in overcrowded houses in deprived areas and have jobs that exposed them to high risks of contracting the virus—a cocktail of conditions that had left them more vulnerable to unemployment and the risk of death We must take the opportunity to reflect on the lessons of the pandemic. Time and time again the Government have promised to reform the gig economy, but their flagship employment Bill is nowhere to be seen. We need to ensure that that Bill enshrines strong protections for gig economy workers, so that as we start to recover and rebuild the foundations of our economy and Britain, we build a Britain that will benefit everybody.
Government's Management of the Economy — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Macroeconomics
Matthew Toby Perkins (Labour, Centre-left): It is telling that the Chancellor has chosen not to respond to this economic debate about the last 10 years and the response required as we emerge from coronavirus. I suspect that that is not because he is publicity shy—everything we have seen of him suggests that that is not the case. I suspect he does not want to be associated with the Tory policies of the past It is important that we understand and learn the lessons of history, and it is important, in order to do that, that we get the history right. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury said in his opening speech that the coalition Government in 2010 inherited an economy that was "shrinking" and a deficit that was "ballooning"—that is false. In fact, the UK economy grew by 1.7% in the first two quarters of 2010, and was on target to grow at over 3.5% in that year before George Osborne’s austerity Budget took demand out of the economy and set us on a path that meant it would be 2013, almost three years later, before we got two quarters of growth as large again That decision to choke off the recovery—to scrap the school and college building programmes, NHS spending and council care services spending—was not only economically insane, and I suspect will not be repeated, but was done entirely for political reasons. George Osborne wanted to be able to lay the blame for the cuts that followed at the door of the previous Government, and was willing to sacrifice months off the recovery in order to do so As we hear the Tories in this debate talking about the deficits they inherited, we might think that we do not have a deficit now, but of course we have the biggest deficit the country has ever had. I support the fact that the Government have not attempted to prevent us from having a deficit. While we are addressing the pandemic, it would have been ludicrous to do so, just as it would be ludicrous to pretend that what was done during the economic crisis of 2008 could be done without a deficit being inherited. Of course, if we had a general election now, this Government would be handing over a monumental deficit, but the Conservatives inherited a country that had had a global event but was already on the path to recovery The Chief Secretary to the Treasury also said that the Government inherited a country that was "unbalanced" between different parts of the country. What on earth have we seen since? There have been hugely disproportionate cuts to local government spending in more deprived areas, and the scrapping of Sure Start, which was so important in working-class communities. Let us remember that all these decisions were taken at the same time that they were handing huge tax cuts, in corporation tax and higher-rate income tax, to the very wealthiest in our country. We certainly were not all in it together. That is the economic context of the past 10 years. This Government have to make sure that they do not repeat the failings and mistakes of the past.
Government's Management of the Economy — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Labor
Olivia Frances Blake Dagnall (Labour, Centre-left): The aftermath of the 2008 crisis saw not only weak levels of growth, but a fundamental shift in the character of our labour market. As the economy contracted and people lost their jobs, we saw low-pay zero-hour contracts in sectors where workers had far weaker trade union representation. Labour borrowing or spending did not cause the international crisis and the economic crash. No, the only organisations that could achieve that were the big banks that took huge risks in an unregulated global banking market, They did not think about the impact that such risks would have on our communities; they just thought about their profits and bonuses This false rhetoric about what happened has damaged towns, cities and many communities, leaving councillors with impossible decisions on what services to cut. I find it a bit insulting when I hear Members say, as some have done today, that those in the public sector have been protected from job losses. After 10 years of harsh service cuts, huge workloads and many vacancies—in nursing, for example, there are 40,000 current vacancies —a huge strain has been imposed on the hard-working public sector who do deserve a pay rise. It is no surprise that the gap between the super-rich and the poorest continues to grow Things are certainly not all rosy in the private sector. In 2008, 143,000 people were on zero-hour contracts. By 2016, that figure had reached nearly 1 million, and it has stayed at about that level ever since. Not only did the 2008 crisis force down wages, the insecure working conditions that it created made it harder to negotiate higher pay. Now, 13 years after the last economic crisis, total pay, adjusted for inflation, has finally returned to 2008 levels Today, some of the people most likely not to have been furloughed are those on low pay, or on zero-hour contracts. I was shocked to read in the latest Office for National Statistics labour market report that the net impact on recent job losses could see an increase in average pay of 1.5%. That is purely because the people on the lowest wages are the ones most likely to lose their jobs. When they do not lose their jobs, many are afraid to go off sick for fear that they will not have their hours renewed, or because statutory sick pay simply will not cover their rent and bills, or because they will not be entitled to statutory sick pay. Low pay and insecurity in our economy has created a perfect storm for transmitting the virus and the Government are failing to learn the lessons. There is a real human price to their ideology—whether it be children in poverty, food bank queues or homelessness.
Government's Management of the Economy — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Macroeconomics
Stephen Nathan Kinnock (Labour, Centre-left): During this pandemic, we have seen the way in which business and the state are utterly interdependent, and yet for a decade the Conservatives have failed to recognise the potential and the desperate need for the Government and enterprise to work in partnership to drive growth, create jobs and wealth and foster the more long-termist, resilient and inclusive economy that our country so badly needs Take research and development. Our Government are failing to match the OECD average of investing 2% of GDP in R&D and are nowhere near their own target of investing 3%. In relative terms, the Governments of Germany and Japan invest twice as much in R&D, and in so doing, they unlock double the amount of private investment Take also the abject failure of the Government to buy British. Consecutive Governments have hidden disingenuously behind EU state aid and procurement rules, while other EU countries have got ahead. Today, the Leader of the Opposition has rightly called on the UK Government to buy more of the food they purchase from British farmers. Likewise, in my Aberavon constituency, we wonder why Whitehall Departments are still buying millions of pounds-worth of steel from other countries Recently, we have witnessed the results of a decade of Conservative failure. UK manufacturing has dropped below 9% of GDP, compared with around 30% in the 1970s. This is hurting communities and making us even more reliant on imports during the pandemic, not least on expensive PPE import deals, in some cases brokered by Conservative cronies who utterly failed to deliver. Our economy has become less resilient and less secure, which has had an adverse effect on national security and health. We have 57 critical national infrastructure supply chains that depend on China. The short-termist nature of our economy has meant that we have become the European capital for hostile foreign takeovers, which are rarely in the national interest, or in the interests of local communities The Government should welcome the shadow Chancellor’s excellent proposals for 100,000 new start-up loans for SMEs, to incentivise young businesses. We need to spread growth beyond London and the south-east. We need to incentivise long-term investment in business and workers over a get-rich-quick mentality, and we must recognise the key role that trade unions play in driving up productivity. We need to give everyone a chance to have a stake in our economy. It is time for the state, employers and workers to join forces as partners for a new kind of growth and to build a United Kingdom of purpose, patriotism and resilience.
Government's Management of the Economy — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Macroeconomics
Mary Kelly Foy (Labour, Centre-left): There is no doubt that the coronavirus has hit us very hard and that we are undergoing the worst economic crisis of any major economy. While some of that impact would have happened anyway, much of it is due to two things. First, there is the Government’s chaotic handling of the crisis, with failures and shortcuts being followed by U-turns, causing a great deal of confusion and damaging public health messaging. Secondly, the coronavirus crisis arrived on the back of 10 years of austerity, public sector cuts and privatisation. There are deep roots of this crisis The north-east has been badly let down, but all over the country, the impact of austerity has left working-class communities vulnerable to the pandemic and to lockdown. On Friday, the Health Foundation highlighted the legacy of poor health and inequalities, which has left much of the population more vulnerable to coronavirus. We know that mortality from the virus has been higher for those with pre-existing health conditions. Since 2011, for areas such as the north-east and some deprived groups, life expectancy has declined. In addition, many families were ill-prepared for the economic impact of the virus. Action for Children has shown that going into the crisis, 51% of children in the UK were living in families with no savings at all This underlying vulnerability has been made worse by social conditions that allowed the virus to spread: overcrowded housing, poverty and insecure work, making it hard for people to self-isolate. That is why it is so important that economic support goes hand in hand with restrictions, so that people can stay safe in reality, rather than just in theory. That means an immediate extension to the furlough scheme to give certainty to workers and businesses and a pay rise for key workers, so that they can live with some security and confidence Of course, it is not all gloom and doom. The coronavirus has taught us a lot about work, our communities and our society. If the Government had any ambition, they would look beyond sticking-plaster solutions towards a new type of economy, aimed at reducing the inequalities between regions in health, housing, work and opportunities. They might also imagine a green future for our economy, based in areas such as the north-east that have been neglected. Years ago, we talked about 1 million climate jobs. That should be part of the transition to a net-zero future. This is an opportunity to rebuild the economy on different foundations, if those in power could only see it.
Government's Management of the Economy — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Macroeconomics
Zarah Sultana (Labour, Centre-left): I had been an MP for only a few months when the pandemic hit, and hearing about its impact on my constituents has been harrowing. We have seen demand at Coventry food bank skyrocket. The number of people on universal credit has doubled. Thousands have lost their jobs. Now, more than 2.5 million children go to bed hungry. But what I find most difficult—what makes me shake with anger—is knowing that while the vast majority of people have suffered hardship, a wealthy few have cashed in Last week, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care was found to have acted unlawfully in his handling of covid contracts. Having broken transparency rules designed to safeguard against corruption, his Department now stands accused of awarding fortunes to Tory friends and donors. For example, a friend of the Secretary of State whose partner just so happens to be a donor to the Secretary of State was awarded a £14 million contract for PPE. A staggering £881 million has been handed to just eight big Tory donors. These people do not give their money just because they are generous; they give it because they want a Government who work for them, not our constituents If we look at the economy before the pandemic hit, we see that this is what these people got. While median earnings are down nearly 5% in the past decade, the wealth of the richest 1,000 people has more than doubled. While the working-class have had a decade of services cut, the super-rich have had their taxes cut. This economy is not broken; it is rigged. It does not work for the majority, but it works perfectly well for the wealthy few. This rigged economy has meant that the virus has hit so much harder than it had to. It thrives on poverty and inequality and exposes brutal cuts to public services. The pandemic is not the only crisis we face: we have a crisis of poverty, a crisis of inequality and a climate crisis that overshadows it all. This is not a time for tinkering around the edges; it is 40 years of neoliberalism that got us here in the first place and we cannot go back to that. So let this be our 1945 moment. Then, from the rubble of war, we saw people refusing to go back to the society of old—an unfair society. They created the NHS and built the welfare state and millions of council homes Let us have the same level of ambition today, with a people’s green new deal—a programme of economic transformation that combats social injustice and the climate emergency by investing in green technology, infrastructure and services and creating more than a million well-paid jobs. Let us give key workers a pay rise and make the super-rich pay their fair share. Instead of returning to the rigged economy of the past, with a people’s green new deal let us build a fairer future.
Government's Management of the Economy — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Macroeconomics
Rachel Louise Hopkins (Labour, Centre-left): The covid-19 pandemic has exposed the roots of a broken economic system that fails to serve the public. Our frail economic system did not emerge overnight; it is a result of the Conservative party’s economic dogma, which sees the state purely as a market fixer and rejects a role for an active state in shaping the market’s direction. It is committed to outsourcing the state’s capacity and services to private companies. That failure of the Government’s industrial strategy has led to the UK’s labour market having an over-reliance on the insecure, low-paid gig economy, where people struggle to make ends meet, while at the same time allowing huge, reckless levels of corporate debt due to dividend payments, share buy-backs and growing executive pay, leaving businesses with little in reserve to weather the crisis In 10 years as a local councillor, I have seen how the Government’s austerity programme, rather than driving growth and productivity through an innovative industrial strategy, has caused the slowest economic recovery since the 1930s. It has devastated living standards and meant that more children in my constituency of Luton South live in poverty We have seen £138 million stripped from our local council’s budget, The public health grant for 2020-21 is £600,000 lower than it was four years ago. NHS hospitals, mental health services and community providers have a shortage of around 84,000 staff; 38,000 of them nurses. Bedfordshire fire and rescue service’s budget has been cut by 19% since 2016-17. Everyone has seen homelessness increase at the same time as the housing crisis has worsened. Food bank use in the east has risen by 74% since 2015-16 and there has been substantial wage stagnation. Throughout the pandemic, the Government’s "whatever it takes" rhetoric has rung hollow as for the past decade they have downgraded the public sector’s ability to respond to a crisis The past shows us that the market is incapable of finding solutions to climate change, to widening inequality and to the continuation of the public health emergency. We need an empowered public sector at the wheel, driving a green economic recovery that redistributes economic prosperity and creates well-paid, secure, unionised jobs. To help with the economic recovery, the Government should value our local councils, which are on the frontline, supporting our communities, and scrap the council tax hike that is being forced on them.
Coronavirus: Supporting Businesses and Individuals — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Macroeconomics
Bridget Maeve Phillipson (Labour, Centre-left): We would work within the parameters of the scheme that has been set out, with the extension around 2019-20. We understand that, at the start of the pandemic, when it was not possible to draw upon those tax returns, there was an argument, but the position has now changed and we are calling on Ministers to reflect and to reconsider their position in the interest of fairness, and also to ensure that self-employed people can keep their businesses going through this very difficult time for our economy.
Coronavirus: Supporting Businesses and Individuals — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Social Welfare
Rebecca Long-Bailey (Labour, Centre-left): At least 3 million people have been excluded from covid support schemes. One constituent of mine ran a tourism business from home. She has no rateable business premises to qualify for grant funding, she cannot afford to repay business support loans, and the minimal furlough she receives does not even cover her rent. Her situation is desperate. Another constituent works as a freelance interior designer for the hospitality sector. He has received only 20% of his usual monthly income, and he says: "I honestly don’t know how I can carry on for much longer" A personal trainer saving to set up her own studio found that she was ineligible for support schemes and, because of her savings, also ineligible for universal credit There are hundreds of stories like these in Salford. Many people may now lose their homes, and the impact on their mental health and that of their families is profound. Indeed, recently the mental health spokesperson for ExcludedUK said that the group has had 13 suicides to date and noted widespread mental anguish. Of one case, the spokesperson said: "I had one woman who posted on our Facebook group asking for someone to come and collect her dogs because she couldn’t afford to feed them anymore. She herself had been eating dog food because that was the only thing she had left in her house" The Chancellor must do the right thing. He must provide an immediate emergency grant for those affected. He must install new monthly arrangements while restrictions remain in place, in complete parity with the extension of the CJRS and SEISS schemes, and remove hard edges to eligibility criteria. Finally, he must backdate payments for a full and final settlement to deliver parity and fairness for those excluded from meaningful support. If the Chancellor refuses to heed these proposals today not only will his promise to leave no one behind be worthless, but he will be responsible for the most glaring and deliberate orchestration of social injustice we have seen during this pandemic.
Coronavirus: Supporting Businesses and Individuals — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Macroeconomics
Antonia Louise Antoniazzi (Labour, Centre-left): Having heard the Chief Secretary to the Treasury talk earlier today about the apparent "sunny uplands" we have here in the UK, I fear that he has not been living in the same world as the rest of us. The Conservative party has been in government for 11 years—let us let that sink in. The Conservatives have had 11 years to make the changes needed to rebalance our economy and make our society more equal, but they have not done so. They have made things worse for hard-working families, children, old people, single parents and people with disabilities, and for those who are unable to work and the homeless they have made it much, much worse. When my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) takes over as Chief Secretary from the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay), the note he leaves for her will undoubtedly read, "We’re doomed." Next week’s Budget needs to put people at the heart of the recovery. Big businesses undoubtedly need support, but it is our small and medium-sized businesses—our independent shops and our fantastic producers—that will drive the build-back from this crisis. My beautiful constituency’s unparalleled tourism and hospitality sector was thriving before the pandemic, but it has been hard hit by the restrictions in place. The excellent Cakes & Ale in Mumbles, the picturesque King’s Head Inn in Llangennith and so many other businesses across my constituency—too many to mention—have been badly affected. Like so many hospitality businesses, they have been open for only 14 weeks in the past year. One way to help hospitality businesses to recover from this crisis is to keep the current reduced VAT rate, which is what they are all asking for. I know many local hospitality businesses in Gower are proud to be supplied by local producers. Our agriculture and fishery sectors are also missing out on supplying those restaurants, cafés and hotels, and boosting the hospitality sector will mean passing the benefits on to them. It is also worth noting the challenge faced in the pandemic by breweries, especially my local Gower Brewery. They, too, are desperate for the pubs and hotels to be open, so I would be grateful if the Chancellor would look at proposals on duty on alcohol to aid their recovery. At the end of December 2020, 4,000 people in Gower were still on furlough. That is 4,000 people to whom the Chancellor has given no certainty or reassurance, and we need that scheme to continue after April. We need our recovery to be faster, and this Government need to learn from the Welsh Labour Government.