argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Coronavirus: Supporting Businesses and Individuals — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Social Welfare
Paula Barker (Labour, Centre-left): By my count, I make it 337 days without proper and sufficient support for those who make up Britain’s 3 million excluded and forgotten. On the reverse side of the coin, the taxpayer-funded gravy train goes full steam ahead, with billions of pounds in publicly funded contracts handed over to Tory donors. In every sense, and at whatever side of the coin one may look, it is a national disgrace Who are these excluded people? They are the people denied furlough; the newly self-employed and those with new start-ups; those who earn less than 50% from self-employment, and, perhaps most immorally of all, women on maternity, parental and/or adoption leave. For those 337 days, livelihoods have been at stake, businesses have been lost and too many have been forced to join the queue for universal credit. Constituents of mine, like Jayne Moore and Grahame Park, Neil McDonald and Claire Ryder, and outside my constituency, people like Tim Pravda, have had 337 days of anxiety and uncertainty about their future I had assumed that the excluded would be a natural constituency for the Tory party, but what shocked me, to say the least, was the outright belligerence and refusal to engage with just over 3 million people. That has undermined the increasingly hollow soundbite of doing "whatever it takes". However, the excluded are not going away. Their persistence is testament to their resolve and I am pleased to play my small part in speaking up for them today Throughout the pandemic, the Conservative modus operandi of dither and delay has compounded the uncertainties and anxieties. Worse, the Government have at times sought to add insult to injury. One example is dropping the self-employment income support scheme to 20% of profits before realising the error of their ways. We know too many who are excluded altogether from that scheme. One minute, the spending taps are on, the next the Government turn into the mate who has bolted from the bar to the toilet when they know their round is next. Only when they are metaphorically dragged out of the loo do they buy a round, basking in the glory of it all before doing a runner when they are next up. But the excluded are never truly given a seat at the table If the Government act quickly, they can get ahead of the curve instead of bending it, and be proactive rather than reactive. I implore them to hear the stories of the excluded 3 million, work with them to plug the gaps in support and put right the wrongs. Let us also significantly extend furlough alongside the self-employment income support scheme, extend business rates relief, continue VAT reductions and keep the eviction ban in place. That means providing reassurance and acting now, not waiting until the March Budget. Our short, medium and long-term recovery depends on it.
Coronavirus: Supporting Businesses and Individuals — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Macroeconomics
Sarah Mei Li Owen (Labour, Centre-left): Nearly a year has gone by without support for the 3 million workers and self-employed people who have been excluded. Thousands of businesses have been forgotten during this pandemic. A year on, the Government cannot pretend they have not heard the calls of the excluded, so it is now either sheer incompetence or a deliberate choice to leave millions of workers unsupported. Time and time again, we hear Ministers give their big total figures, but that means nothing to the people who have had nothing. We need to see support for workers and businesses not just extended, but targeted, and the criteria for applications widened I have met with fantastic businesses in Luton North that have received little to nothing at all from the Chancellor. Creative8 and Purple Creative Events are just two such businesses. Both are fantastic companies based in my constituency, and they are more than viable. Outside of a pandemic, they thrive and provide skilled work, but crucially, they are part of the business-generating events industry. They are a vital cog in our local and national economy, and their events generate more business. If we want an economic road map out of this mess, the events industry must be part of the answer Where this Government turn a blind eye, other countries are acting. Germany has already secured the future of its own live events industry, underwriting events with a "go live" date. Austria and Norway have also done the same. If the Minister does not act now, he risks losing jobs, an entire industry and its supply chain There are few events as personally significant as a wedding. I have had constituents contact me who are unable to get on with the next chapter of their lives, and that is not to mention the photographers, venues, caterers and other small businesses within this important industry. It is another business-generating industry, and if it is allowed to fall, that will not only have a terrible personal impact on those hoping to get married, but a devastating economic impact. The sector has lost out on more than £430 million due to cancelled or postponed weddings, and it is the small businesses, the wedding venues, the self-employed photographer and the families who have borne the brunt of that cost, with little support from the Government I want to turn to another group of people all too forgotten in this crisis. Pregnant Then Screwed has rightly highlighted the discrimination faced by working mums, as the self-employment income support scheme has seen tens of thousands of women receive lower payments than those who had not taken maternity leave. It is not a small group of people affected; close to 70,000 women have been left out of pocket. I ask the Minister, are working mums worth less in the eyes of the Government, and if not, when and how will they put right this inequality? When it comes to economic support, when will Ministers stop prioritising their mates and start prioritising hard-working people in places such as Luton North?
Coronavirus: Supporting Businesses and Individuals — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Macroeconomics
Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour, Centre-left): I am extremely grateful to be able to participate in this important Opposition day debate on supporting businesses and individuals through the coronavirus crisis Since the beginning of the pandemic, those who have been financially impacted by coronavirus have sadly been at the mercy of the Government’s incompetent and delayed decision making. Almost a year on, it seems that little has changed. While the public health road map announced yesterday by the Prime Minister is welcome news to us all, the absence of an economic support plan alongside it was alarming. Previously, the Prime Minister’s and the Chancellor’s dithering resulted in job losses and mass redundancies. Now it looks like history could well repeat itself. Slough has sadly suffered with both our public health and our local economy as a result of the pandemic. My constituency is a proud, huge business hub, with the highest concentration of global corporate headquarters in the UK outside London, a significant number of workers in the airline industry, and usually a very healthy employment rate. So the impact of covid on local people’s lives and livelihoods has been devastating —14,500 constituents are still furloughed this month, while claims for universal credit have skyrocketed. All are doing their best in circumstances beyond their control. My office has been inundated by local businesses, employees, the self-employed, freelancers, food and drink wholesalers, our local football team, private hire taxi drivers, local media outlets, events employees from live music to weddings and theatres, early years providers and childminders, and those working for airports and airlines. A clear comprehensive plan is all they have wanted for the past year Even now, businesses are waiting between yesterday’s announcement and the Budget, left in limbo yet again. The Government should be doing all they can to get as many people as possible through the crisis and to ensure that we build a brighter economic future by tackling inequality, building up businesses and supporting job creation. Instead, they seem intent on raising council tax, freezing key worker pay, cutting universal credit and keeping businesses in the dark. We all know that targeted economic measures that support businesses and protect family finances will be key to rebuilding our economy and boosting employment, including a smart furlough scheme, a covid debt plan for businesses, a six-month extension of business rate relief for retail, hospitality and leisure, and an extension of the 5% reduced rate of VAT for the hospitality, tourism and culture sectors. Businesses and families need urgent action and support, not the characteristic dither and delay we have come to expect from this Tory Government.
Coronavirus: Supporting Businesses and Individuals — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Social Welfare
Grahame Mark Morris (Labour, Centre-left): Our country’s ability to support families through the covid crisis was fundamentally weak at the very outset. Indeed, a report by the Money Charity found that we entered the covid crisis with 10 million households in Britain having no savings and another 3 million having savings of less than £1,500. Years of pay restraint and insecure employment have left many living off debt, and indeed many businesses and individuals, including the over 3 million excluded, have found themselves unable to claim any Government support specifically intended to relieve the consequences of covid. Among those self-employed groups are taxi drivers, driving instructors, entertainers, performers, small brewers and many freelancers in the hospitality and catering trades The Trades Union Congress has found that households owe an average of £15,385 to credit card firms, banks and other lenders. Over the last decade, public spending cuts have led to higher costs for families at a time when wages have stagnated or been cut in real terms. Even as we speak, members of my own union, Unite, are resisting unscrupulous employers, including the French-owned bus company RATP, which is using covid as a smokescreen to implement pay policies that could see some bus drivers lose up to £2,500 a year. Ministers have created a gig economy that traps people between a rock and a hard place—between low pay and destitution, with the social security safety net being cut away. The £20 universal credit supplement is due to be cut, and we are waiting to hear what the outcome is in the Budget. Again, my own union, Unite, is campaigning alongside charities and civil society for the uplift to be consolidated, not cut Despite the speeches from hon. Members on the Government Benches, the Government have created an economy that does not make work pay for all. We have endemic in-work poverty, systemic child poverty and an economy that cannot house and feed all of our people. There have been more than 120,000 deaths as a consequence of covid, but it does not have to be like this. There are numerous examples around the world of how things could be done differently. We need only to look at New Zealand as an example. I hope that, moving forward, we can secure a Government who will look on the economy as a partnership between public and private, not as a clash of two competing forces.
Coronavirus: Supporting Businesses and Individuals — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Labor
Olivia Frances Blake Dagnall (Labour, Centre-left): As we are debating support for businesses and individuals through the covid crisis, I want to tell the story of one of my constituents, a recently self-employed person called Peter. He started trading in 2019, so he cannot claim on the self-employment income support scheme. He also cannot claim universal credit because his wife earns just a little too much, but not enough to cover all the bills. His life has been turned upside down, and he has been forced to borrow money from friends and family. Desperately looking for help, he telephoned Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and was told by the call handler, "I am sorry, but that is just the way it is." Madam Deputy Speaker, the way it is is not good enough. Peter is one of more than 3 million people whom the Government have failed to support in this public health crisis In my constituency, that inaction is hitting young people the hardest. It is young people who were disproportionately in the low-paid, insecure, zero-hour jobs that were the first to go when the crisis hit. Last year, the number of people claiming unemployment-related benefits in Sheffield increased by 158%. For 16 to 24-year-olds, that number increased by a staggering 300%. Many were made redundant because the Government told employers that the furlough scheme would stop, or change, on 31 October. The mixed messages of the past year have not been business friendly. Indeed, in many cases, they have been business ending, with sectors such as small breweries seeing two breweries close a week and changes to the small brewers’ relief looming Ministers were dragged kicking and screaming into extending the furlough scheme, but I wonder how many of those unemployed people would have kept their jobs had the Government communicated this decision sooner. Now, like Groundhog Day, we are going through the same process again. The Chancellor was too slow to act before and we ended up with record redundancies. With 4.6 million people still furloughed, he is in danger of doing it all over again. Rather than wait a month and put those jobs at risk, workers need guarantees next week that they will continue to receive support Time and again, the Government have refused to learn the lessons of the past year. The Chancellor must close the gaps in support systems and provide the clarity that workers and business owners alike urgently need to plan ahead. The mistakes of the previous year need to be fixed so that no one is left behind. Our recovery depends on it.
Coronavirus: Supporting Businesses and Individuals — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Macroeconomics
Florence Eshalomi (Labour, Centre-left): Many businesses in Vauxhall will be feeling cautiously optimistic after hearing yesterday’s plan for reopening the economy. Here in Vauxhall, our economy is dependent on the hospitality, tourism and entertainment sectors, and is supported by many small, independent businesses that provide auxiliary services to residents and the millions of visitors we normally welcome every year. From this afternoon’s contributions, we have heard that this pandemic has created winners and losers. Vauxhall has been hit particularly hard because of the nature of our economy and the supporting workforce. The gradual lifting of restrictions will not see an immediate return to business as usual. It will take time for tourists to come back along the south bank, to Brixton, to Stockwell and to Oval, and for local people to feel 100% comfortable about socialising in public again. But Vauxhall’s businesses do not have time. They are struggling to stay afloat after a year of stop-start lockdowns and gaps in Government support As we look ahead to next week’s Budget, I urge the Chancellor not to withdraw support too quickly and not to adopt a one-size-fits-all approach to recovery. It makes no economic sense for businesses to be supported all the way through lockdown only to have that support withdrawn once restrictions are lifted. I call on the Chancellor to make sure that this support is sector-specific and tailored to meet the needs of each and every one of our businesses to ensure that we have a fair and resilient national economic lockdown.
Coronavirus: Supporting Businesses and Individuals — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Social Welfare
Tracy Lynn Brabin (Labour, Centre-left): It is a privilege to speak in this debate. Today, I will focus much of my contribution on those who have fallen through the gaps in support—commonly known as the excluded Nearly a year into the pandemic, there are still 3 million people missing out on meaningful financial support. They are people who have lost homes, possessions and have had to close businesses or saddle themselves with a frightening amount of debt just to keep going during the pandemic, an event not of their making. This has inevitably led to an increase in destitution in our country. It will not have escaped the Minister’s attention that a report by the National Institute for Economic and Social Research found that, by the end of 2020, there were 220,000 more households living in destitution than at the start of the year. Destitution is defined as a two-adult household living on less than £100 a week and a single-adult household living on less than £70 a week, after housing costs. That worrying trend will continue, unless we direct urgent and significant support to the excluded There is a regional aspect, too. The Office for National Statistics has revealed that redundancies in Yorkshire have reached a five-year high, with 18,000 people being made redundant in the last three months of 2020—a 63% increase on the same time in the previous year. The all-party parliamentary group, Gaps in Support, has tried to help. We have offered schemes to the Treasury to bring the newly self-employed into eligibility for SEISS, a directors income support scheme, a targeted income support scheme and a one-off, taxable grant. They are not exclusive demands and we are certainly open to any fixes that the Treasury would like to propose I would like to focus on one group of people who have significantly missed out—pregnant women and new mothers. Women who were on maternity allowance throughout the period 20 March to 30 October will not have submitted a PAYE real-time information submission, which is required by the scheme, meaning they could miss out on furlough. That really needs to be rectified. The Government should also provide a system to backdate furlough payments to new mothers who have missed out due to insufficient government guidance We must also examine the proposals supported by the TUC for a temporary right to shared furlough, which would bring the commendable principles of shared parental leave into the furlough scheme, allowing families to make decisions based on what works for them and their children, because it is frankly absurd that self-employed mothers have no ability to discount their maternity leave from SEISS payments. Tens of thousands of women have been discriminated against and are out of pocket, against a background where women’s wages have already dropped 12%, double that of men; 48% of women have seen their disposable income fall; and women in the 25-34 age bracket are twice as likely to be made redundant.
Coronavirus: Supporting Businesses and Individuals — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Macroeconomics
Paul Christopher Blomfield (Labour, Centre-left): I am sure it will not, Madam Deputy Speaker, and can I thank you for giving me this opportunity Hospitality and particularly the night-time economy provide thousands of jobs in my constituency: restaurants, bars, pubs, clubs, live music venues—brave businesses making a vibrant city, but hit hardest over the last year. Too many who work within them have fallen through the gaps in the support schemes: new businesses ineligible for it because of administrative deadlines, self-employed who have missed out and workers who had moved employer at the wrong time. So it is no surprise that, according to figures announced this morning, the number of claimants in my constituency has doubled over the last year Next week’s Budget must address these issues and provide the flexible help the hospitality sector needs as we navigate the road map out of restrictions and ensure that businesses do not fall at the first hurdle. Support is essential not only for businesses that will remain closed, but for those that will initially only be able to open partially, with outside-only service. Crucially, it must extend to their supply chains. Continuing VAT and business rates relief will help, and so will a smart furlough scheme that does not abandon those who can only open in a limited way. Dropping support too quickly or too crudely will fail jobs and businesses Another group who are key to my local economy are students. They have been hard hit by the pandemic, and not just in terms of education. With maintenance loans not even covering rents for many, part-time work provides vital income to sustain many students at university. Jobs they depend on in hospitality and retail have disappeared in the pandemic. Income lost through the absence of those jobs has had a huge impact. As students, they have not been eligible for the support that is available to others, although they have still been required to pay rent for accommodation that they have not been allowed to use. That is why the all-party parliamentary group on students, which I chair, has asked for substantial additional hardship support from Government, as well as support for universities to address lost learning—practical recommendations on which the Government have fallen short Yesterday, the Prime Minister confirmed that many students will not be allowed back to campus until after Easter, and the jobs on which they rely are not returning any time soon either. This morning, the Minister for Universities wrote an open letter to students, highlighting the £70 million of hardship support that has been provided. It is worth just £36 per student in England: equivalent to the wages of a short bar shift—barely a sticking plaster—and much less than the £80 in Scotland, £300 in Wales and £500 in Northern Ireland. This generation of students will be paying for the pandemic longer than the rest of us, and they deserve our support now.
Coronavirus: Supporting Businesses and Individuals — House of Commons, 2021-02-23
Topic: Labor
Matthew Toby Perkins (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. You will be pleased to see that I have all my clothes on This is an important debate as we head towards the Budget. As somebody who was formerly self-employed, I think it is incredibly important to recognise not only the importance of the self-employment scheme, but all the people who have been excluded from it. We need to recognise that people do not go into self-employment expecting to rely on the Government for help; they do it because they are willing to focus on their own abilities and to bring about the best outcomes for themselves. When self-employed people are left having to rely on Government, it comes very unnaturally to them We should remember that the majority of self-employed people were asked by the Government back in March to stay at home and not to go to work. They were told that there would be a self-employment scheme to support them. It has become transparently clear that so many of them have been missed out, while, simultaneously, other people who have continued to work have still been able to claim via the scheme. Just this week, I spoke to a constituent who has been excluded because, over the course of the three years, he has had periods when he has been employed; and he took a pension when he first became self-employed, to get him through. As a result he is unable to demonstrate, according to the Chancellor’s very arbitrary 50% of income rules, that he is self-employed. He has had almost 11 months during the vast majority of which he has been unable to work and unable to be supported by the scheme. At the same time, he has been working on building sites for people who have worked all the way through—have hardly missed a day—and have said, "This is wonderful: the Government are giving me money, even though I am carrying on." We have schemes that have not worked as they should Directors of small businesses who have paid themselves through dividends have been excluded, and I am afraid that throughout the life of the scheme, too many people have been missed out. That was understandable back in March, as the scheme was being put together in a rush, but there really has been enough time to sort this out now, and the Government should get to getting it sorted out.