argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-03-14
Topic: Education
Angela Rayner (Labour, Centre-left): The Secretary of State has spent a huge amount of time speaking and I have a lot of Back Benchers who want to speak, so I am going to carry on. The Chancellor announced one other measure in the Budget to address the issue: £5 million a year for the Government’s cash-for-cabs scheme, bussing children to grammar schools. Of course, the Chancellor forgot to mention that the Government had just cut £6 million out of the schools transport budget for every other child. Those cuts left no statutory provision for disabled 16 to 18-year-olds and others, who were forced to change school. They are paying the taxi tax so that a handful of pupils can be ferried up to 15 miles to the nearest grammar school by cab, at a cost of thousands of pounds each. Apparently, the comprehensive school bus is out, and the grammar school Uber is in. That is all to give the Government a fig leaf of social mobility. The Chancellor said: "We are committed to that programme because we understand that choice is the key to excellence in education".—[Official Report, 8 March 2017; Vol. 622, c. 818.] I remind the Government that good teaching, school leadership, proper funding, the right curriculum and many other things are also key to that excellence It is also a rather obvious point that the Government’s proposed system is not one in which parents or pupils choose the school; instead, the schools choose the pupils. Parents are unlikely to have the choice they have been promised on childcare either. The Chancellor told the House that "from September, working parents with three and four-year-olds will get their free childcare entitlement doubled to 30 hours a week."—[Official Report, 8 March 2017; Vol. 622, c. 816.] But the Secretary of State has already admitted in written answers that only a small minority of the parents receiving 15 hours will be eligible for the 30 hours. Fewer than 400,000 families will qualify, despite the Government’s promise at the last election that more than 600,000 would benefit The Chancellor’s plans for adult education are no closer to reality. He announced £40 million to trial new ways of delivering adult education and lifelong learning, but his own Government have cut the adult skills budget by 32% since 2010, taking out more than £1 billion. I know that the Chancellor’s aides have referred to their neighbours in No. 10 as "economically illiterate", but surely even they realise the absurdity of trying to reverse the damage caused by £1 billion of cuts with £40 million in trials It is a similar story with the £500 million a year to deliver the new T-levels. That amount of new investment would be welcome—after all, further education budgets were cut by 7% in the last Parliament, and the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that between 2010 and 2020, funding per pupil in further education would be cut by 13%—but the briefing lines do not quite match the Budget lines. The Red Book shows that in 2018-19 the new funding will be only £60 million. Even by 2021-22, the new funding will not have risen to the promised half a billion a year.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-03-14
Topic: Macroeconomics
John Mann (Labour, Centre-left): Is my hon. Friend aware of the consequences for the productivity gap? Since the Tories came in, and even under the coalition Government, the productivity gap between this country and the rest of the world has worsened in every single year. It is now at its worst since 1991.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-03-14
Topic: Education
Angela Rayner (Labour, Centre-left): I make that one-all from each side of the House, so I will move on That brings us back to the context for the other announcements, which is the funding crisis facing our schools. We learn from The Times today that the Government are now in retreat over the new funding formula. Perhaps the Secretary of State will use this opportunity to clarify the Government’s position to the House, rather than to Conservative Members in private meetings. They might say that they are still consulting and have not seen the results, but we still have not yet had the results of the "Schools that work for everyone" consultation and that did not stop the Prime Minister using the Budget to announce most of the forthcoming schools Bill to the press It was the same story with the initial plans for new grammar schools, the new school improvement funding, the new capital spending on free schools and every other education announcement made in last week’s Budget. Announcements are being made behind closed doors or behind the paywalls of the Prime Minister’s favoured newspapers, rather than to this House. It is no wonder they would rather avoid our scrutiny, because the Budget failed to mention the pledge the Conservative party made in its manifesto: "Under a future Conservative government, the amount of money following your child into school will be protected…there will be a real-terms increase in the schools budget in the next Parliament." The last Prime Minister made it clear what he meant: "the amount of money following your child into the school will not be cut. In Treasury-speak, flat cash per pupil." The Conservatives were clear: not a single pupil in the country would see their funding cut by a single penny. That was their promise. Yet the National Audit Office has found that there will be an 8% drop in per pupil funding this Parliament, leaving schools forced to make cuts worth £3 billion. Up and down the country, we hear that schools are seeing less money in their budgets. They are being forced to cut hours or subjects, or to ask parents to chip in. Yesterday, on Europe, the Government were clear that their justification was the mandate of the British people, yet they had a mandate when it came to funding our schools too. I know the Tories would like to airbrush the last Prime Minister from history, but will they tell us today whether that pledge still stands, and, if so, when the Treasury intends to meet it? The Government had much to say about education in this Budget, but when it came to meeting their own promises they were selective with their facts and comprehensive in their failure. They must do better.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-03-14
Topic: Macroeconomics
Iain David Wright (Labour, Centre-left): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh); he made a thoughtful and forward-looking speech, although I have to say that I could not disagree with him more on the matters of insurance-based payments to fund our NHS and selective education; those are the wrong approaches for this country to take I want to mention three key points. The first is the position of the national debt. This year’s "Economic and fiscal outlook" document from the Office for Budget Responsibility states that "the fiscal mandate has targeted different measures of the deficit at different horizons", which is a beautifully diplomatic way of saying that the Government keep moving the goalposts and still fail to score the goal. The OBR goes on to state that "the Government does not appear to be on track to meet its stated fiscal objective to ‘return the public finances to balance at the earliest possible date in the next Parliament’." So the Government have failed on the deficit, but they are failing catastrophically on the debt In 2010, the Government expected public sector net debt to be falling as a share of GDP; it was forecast to reach a high of 70.3% in 2013-14, falling to 67.4% by 2015-16. However, in every single year that the Tories have been in No. 11 net debt has risen in actual and relative terms, reaching 83.7% of GDP last year, and it is going to rise through this Parliament, with the Red Book forecasting that it will reach 88.9% this year When the coalition took office, public sector net debt was £771 billion. This year it reached £1.6 trillion, and the Red Book forecasts it is to rise again throughout this Parliament to £1.9 trillion. This is my first key point: in little over a decade, the Tories will have increased public sector debt by 146%, with it rising by over £1 trillion In his statement, the Chancellor said that they "will not saddle our children with ever-increasing debts."—[Official Report, 8 March 2017; Vol. 622, c. 811.] However, when Tory Chancellors have increased the public debt by almost 150% in a decade, saddling our children with ever-increasing debts seems to be precisely what this Government are doing.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-03-14
Topic: Education
Barry John Sheerman (Labour, Centre-left): I have already complimented the hon. Gentleman on being a good, out-of-the-box thinker, and that is another interesting suggestion to debate My second star is for productivity. Actually, it is only half a star, because we cannot really check. The Budget includes additional high-value investment, the national productivity investment fund and world-class infrastructure investment. I like most of that, except I am one of those quirky people who still cannot believe in High Speed 2 and in the fact that all that national treasure is being put into a railway that will be out of date by the time it opens in 2033. I think the money should be spent on the national health service, but I know I am in a minority on that The Budget also includes £300 million for the future development of the UK’s research talent and to attract talent from the research powerhouses of China, Brazil and Mexico. I like all that—it is all quite good stuff, so it gets half a star. All the stuff about disruptive technology investment to transform the UK economy, electric vehicles, artificial intelligence and robots is good stuff, but there has not been enough private sector research and development for a number of years. Co-operation between business and universities has not been good enough. We will never get the levels of productivity we want until we have the right kind relationships Finally, I come to my wish: for goodness’ sake, where is the evidence that grammar schools and free schools do anything to find the spark in children that we want to release? There is no evidence and no research. Not one reputable research institute or organisation in this country believes that a return to selective education will help anyone—quite the reverse. Look at all the research and the experience in other countries. Just look at Kent, for God’s sake! It is the most selective place in the country and it has the worst performance across all schools in the country. That is selective education. It has no research base and no experience base, and there is no global comparison of which we can say, "Isn’t it wonderful?" They do not have it in Denmark, Sweden or Finland. I doubt it is even the latest fashion in Shanghai I like policy that is based on good research and good evaluation, and yes, sometimes we should work across the party divide—that is the way to make policy. This Budget has not delivered it. We want that spark to be found and promoted—we want the country to be rich and successful in the challenging disaster of Brexit—but it is not in this Budget.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-03-14
Topic: Education
Gareth Craig Snell (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to make my maiden speech during an important debate on education and skills. Both are vital to the future success of my constituency, albeit a greater challenge following the sustained underfunding of Stoke schools It is a privilege to have been elected as the Labour and Co-operative Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent Central in an election that was not planned and following a campaign that, all too often, did not do justice to the wonderful city that I now represent. Many of my colleagues on these Benches—and, I would wager, on the Government Benches—who came to Stoke-on-Trent during the by- election would struggle to reconcile the vibrant, welcoming and proud city they visited with the portrait painted by the national media. All too often, cameras lingered over disused bottle kilns, while our resurgence in hi-tech ceramics went unmentioned. Journalists posed by abandoned shop fronts, just yards away from the city’s thriving cultural quarter, and rarely did our world-class university feature in reports. Commentators talked down my city in order to play up their narrative. They dismissed a capital of culture as little more than the capital of Brexit, pigeonholing my constituents into a box that does not reflect their true character While that narrative suited those seeking to win the election on a platform of hatred, division and nationalism dressed up as patriotism, it did a grave disservice to my city, whose motto is "United strength is stronger." My city demonstrated that nationalism of any sort has no place in our politics. My challenge, for however long I am blessed to represent Stoke-on-Trent in this place, is to champion everything that is great and good about our city; to recognise our problems, but to highlight our many achievements; and to shout loud and often about why the Potteries, above all else, is the best place in the UK, if not the world In the Potteries, we are innovators and educators, artists and entrepreneurs. We pioneered the first industrial revolution—something that has been discussed quite a lot this afternoon—and we have the potential to lead the next. We are the home of Reginald Mitchell, Josiah Wedgwood, Clarice Cliff and, more recently, Robbie Williams. But, most importantly, we are home to the Staffordshire oatcake—a delicacy seldom found outside of the ST postcode but which, once savoured, is never forgotten.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-03-14
Topic: Macroeconomics
James Dolan Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): I start by congratulating my new hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell). His speech was interesting and very hopeful, given the economic situation that the people of Stoke-on-Trent, like the rest of the country, are suffering from. I am sure their new Member will do his adopted city proud, as I try to do for Coventry Let us look at the Budget in the context of the austerity measures that the Government have pursued. They will have lasted far longer than the time from the start of the second world war to the end of rationing, and we wonder why people like Donald Trump get elected—it is because austerity has gone on far too long in America, like in this country and in Europe. I would have expected the Budget to have offered at least some sort of hope to the British people, but all we had was a further dose of austerity The Government told us that the deficit would be eliminated by the end of the last Parliament—another promise that they have broken. In fact, the Chancellor is now extending the deficit. Taxes are increasing while real wages are falling. The TUC’s analysis has found that the UK ranks 103rd out of 112 countries for pay growth. Some 6 million people earn less than the living wage and 4 million children are in poverty. The Government have not really addressed those issues When Labour left office, Britain retained its triple A rating, we had low interest rates to help poorer families, and 85,000 more nurses and 32,000 more doctors had been trained. The current Government, and the coalition before them, have been living off the benefits of that Another broken manifesto promise by the Government is on national insurance contributions. That was touched on earlier, so I will not elaborate too much on it, but it will affect self-employed people, particularly those in lower pay brackets such as taxi drivers and people working in pubs. The rich will not necessarily be better off as a result, but the change will hit hard-working people In the case of welfare, there has been no reversal of the personal independence payment cuts and the changes to employment and support allowance, which will hit disabled people hard. There have been demonstrations about that, and I am sure that my colleagues will have been lobbied about it at their surgeries. Yet the Government have started a process that will allow some people to pass on property free from inheritance tax.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-03-14
Topic: Macroeconomics
Stephen Pelham Pound (Labour, Centre-left): Not only do we get lobbied in our surgeries but we get lobbied at home—my son, a self-employed electrician, was speaking to me about this the other day. Not only is he being hammered for NICs, but he is having to do quarterly tax returns—he is tempted to vote Labour! That is the unfortunate side effect, from the Government’s point of view. Does my hon. Friend accept that the Conservatives are no longer the party of the self-employed—the party of white van man and woman? They are the party of themselves, and of the wealthy, the rich and those who are not bothered by what have been described as "pitiful" sums of money.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-03-14
Topic: Macroeconomics
Ruth Smeeth (Labour, Centre-left): Before I start, may I say how proud and delighted I am to be joined on these green Benches by my new hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) who made a wonderful maiden speech? I am now grateful for every door I knocked on in the rain. [Interruption.] We can send him back now What we heard last week was a Budget bereft of ideas from a Government in want of a plan. It offered no solution to the crisis in our NHS, no vision for our country’s future outside the EU and no offer of hope for the Potteries, which I am so proud to represent. Its alleged support for health and social care amounted to little more than an empty gesture in the face of crippling financial crisis within our NHS The Budget prioritised the vanity projects of an out-of-touch Prime Minister over fixing our struggling education system. It is timid in the face of unprecedented challenges; indeed, it is bold in only one respect—in its choice of victims. The Chancellor will no doubt have been counting his blessings that he had a ministerial car in which to flee the scene last week, because I am sure that the cabbies of central London would have painted him a clear and somewhat colourful picture of what his announcement on national insurance is set to do to their take-home pay.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-03-14
Topic: Macroeconomics
Wesley Paul William Streeting (Labour, Centre-left): As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on taxis, I can tell my hon. Friend that taxi drivers as well as other self-employed workers cannot understand why their burden as relatively low-paid workers should increase while there are tax cuts for the very richest. Is this not one of the many reasons why there are so few Conservative Members on the Government Benches to defend this terrible Budget?
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-03-14
Topic: Education
Lucy Maria Powell (Labour, Centre-left): Yes. We can infer that. The evidence is clear on selective education. Those systems do not boost social mobility. In fact, in many cases they widen the gap. As we all know in the House, the big challenge facing our education system is the long tail of under- achievement. It is not about how we can better support the already high-achieving. The only argument advanced by Conservative Members is that the tiny number of children on free school meals who get into grammar schools, who by definition are already high-achieving, do better than all the other children on free school meals. What a joke of an argument that is to base the entire policy on. There is a huge amount of evidence going the other way Perhaps that is why, when the Secretary of State addressed the usually mild-mannered and pragmatic Association of School and College Leaders at the weekend, she got booed, which has never happened at that conference before. It may also be why the Sutton Trust, the Government’s own Social Mobility Commission, the Education Policy Institute, the former chief inspector of schools, all the secondary heads in Surrey and many, many others and many Conservative Members have come out against those proposals There are plenty of things that the Government should be doing, and we have mentioned a few of them. Perhaps they should get to those core issues, rather than creating yet more uncertainty and instability in the system. They should get on with doing something about the major funding challenge. This is not about fair funding—it is about funding levels being maintained at the levels they are now. The belts are being tightened even more for some schools, but all schools are losing out from those funding measures The Government should do something about teacher shortages. For five years in a row, they have missed their retention and recruitment challenges. They should do something about the school places crisis and work with local authorities, rather than plonking free schools where they are not needed. And get a grip on what is happening with the new GCSEs and curriculum. There is absolute chaos there If the Government really want to do something about social mobility, they could do a lot worse than look at investing properly in quality provision in the early years, rather than trying to deliver child care on the cheap. There is plenty of evidence to support it, and I am happy to discuss that with Ministers if they want to have a real agenda for social mobility.
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-03-14
Topic: Energy
Anna Catherine Turley (Labour, Centre-left): I appreciate my hon. Friend mentioning the fantastic institute in my constituency. Does she share my concern at a story on WalesOnline last week saying that Swansea is predicted to receive £80 million for a steel science centre that would almost directly duplicate the work that is happening at the MPI in Redcar and could then impact on the Nissan supply chain that she mentions?
Budget Resolutions — House of Commons, 2017-03-14
Topic: Foreign Trade
Sharon Hodgson (Labour, Centre-left): Yes—I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman makes that point. Electric battery technology is going from strength to strength. I was very pleased to see that there was an announcement on electric vehicles and battery technology in the Budget However, we see a predicament looming on the horizon as we begin to leave the EU—WTO tariffs. Ministers have given countless reassurances that we will strike a deal with the EU that does not mean we have to fall back on the 10% WTO tariffs. Yet only this weekend this was blown out of the water when a leaked document showed the Prime Minister’s willingness to fall back on those terms, regardless of the economic impact they may have. That was then reiterated by the Foreign Secretary on TV, also over the weekend. This would be catastrophic not only for the country but for my constituency and the businesses there. In the case of Nissan, falling back on to WTO tariffs and crashing out of the customs union would cause significant delays on products coming into the country that they rely on Another issue is that overseas parts currently used to build Nissan cars would have to be reduced significantly to meet the WTO rules of origin. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has said that cars need to have 50% local content to meet the rules of origin and be classed as British-made, and that could prove a major problem for Nissan. This is where the materials catapult comes into play. Not only would it reinvigorate the supply chain with innovation, especially in skills and jobs, but it could act as a way to mitigate the issues arising from the potential impact of WTO tariffs on manufacturing. I cannot make this point strongly enough the House: this catapult could also mean potential jobs growth. If we take the case of reducing overseas content in Nissan cars, it could significantly boost the UK supply chain and create tens of thousands of new UK jobs, which could seriously transform the manufacturing sector in the UK. Catapults could help in part to achieve the resilience I have talked about, and I hope the Government will listen and look again at the potential of a materials catapult.