argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Labor
Mhairi Black (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I have let the hon. Lady in multiple times, and she has sat there and not listened to a single word. She can put her hand up all she likes. Shaking her head and wishing that this was not the reality is exactly the attitude that is wrong; it is what I am trying to challenge. SNP Members experience day in, day out the hardship that the Government are causing, so I suggest she sits back and genuinely listens to what I am proposing in the Bill rather than trying to score political points and build her ego If the Tories are so convinced that they have adequate protections in place, why not support a Bill that formally establishes them for the most vulnerable? The UK Government will say that they already have the guidance in place, which I appreciate. That is all the more reason to protect it formally and give it statutory power and cover. The Bill would also ensure consistency across the board. In reality, the protections in the Bill go beyond the vague protections within guidance by specifically protecting vulnerable groups and putting responsibility on the Government to assess a person’s individual circumstance The Government say that they have already taken measures to protect claimants from sanctions when they announced their intention to undertake a trial involving warning claimants of the intention to impose a sanction on them—a yellow card system whereby people are given a period of 14 days to provide evidence of a good reason. In a written answer on 18 November, the Minister stated: "The Jobseeker’s Allowance Sanctions Early Warning Trial in Scotland ran until September 2016 and involved approximately 6,500 claimants. Data was collected throughout the trial period to assess the extent to which the warning trial affected sanction decisions Qualitative interviews are currently being undertaken with a sample of these claimants to gain an understanding of how the new process affected claimant behaviour. The trial has now finished and a full evaluation is being undertaken The interim report will be published at the end of the year and the final report around April 2017. Findings from the trial will inform any decisions on future roll-out." If the Government are prepared to make small changes, then surely for the reasons I have outlined for the last wee while, it is perfectly reasonable to ask them to support the Bill, or at least to give some kind of concession or introduce a similar proposal of their own Fundamentally, the Bill has two points: first, to assess the individual’s personal circumstances before any sanction is applied; and, secondly, when a sanction is applied, to assess them automatically for a hardship payment. They are very small asks. As I have said, I have tried to be as constructive as possible to introduce a measure that the Government can get on board with, and to put aside party political differences and the different routes that we believe politics should go down.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Labor
Christopher Charles Stephens (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): My hon. Friend has given a tour de force this morning. Is it the case that support for the Bill also comes from the trade union representing staff employed by the Department for Work and Pensions—the Public and Commercial Services Union—which wants consistency across the board?
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Labor
Mhairi Black (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): When I was first putting out the feelers to find out what people thought should be in the Bill, I went to numerous jobcentres. All the jobcentre staff I came across said that the Bill would be brilliant for them. They said it would be great because it would give clarity on what they can do. If they had a list or a code of conduct, they could say, "Right. You’ve got a child who is sick. It is clear that this does not apply", and it would not be left to their personal judgment The Bill is logical and small. It protects not only our citizens and the most vulnerable people in our society, but the staff, who are under tremendous pressure in a system that is constantly changing at a rapid pace. I have genuinely tried to make the Bill one that we can pass together. I have tried to build a bridge over which all political parties can cross. I ask the Minister and all hon. Members who have sat in the Chamber today—I imagine the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) will not be joining me—to support the Bill as much as they possibly can.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Social Welfare
Mhairi Black (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The point the hon. Gentleman is making is that we need to have sanctions in place because people have to be claiming benefits legitimately—fine. We disagree on that, but that is not what this Bill is about. What it is about is preventing people from being sanctioned wrongly; it is about making sure that nobody is left destitute. It is not about sanctions overall; it is about one small change to prevent hardship.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Macroeconomics
Christopher Charles Stephens (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman has been talking about the "taxpayer" and about how benefits are not a right. Does he know that 3,665 employees in the Department for Work and Pensions are chasing benefit fraud estimated at £1.2 billion, but that only 320 employees are based in the High Net Worth Unit of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs chasing tax avoidance estimated at £70 billion? Should we not be going after the tax avoiders far more than we should the most vulnerable in our society?
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Labor
Thomas Sheppard (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am confused about why the hon. Gentleman is trying to defend the principle of conditionality, when there is nothing in this Bill that says that conditionality would be removed. Does he not understand that there is a difference between people being required to look for work if they are in receipt of benefit and removing people’s method of staying alive if they miss an interview by 10 minutes because their child was sick or because they had a personal catastrophe? We should be looking at the individual and not treating people as a bloc.
Aid Reviews — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: International Affairs
Patrick John Grady (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): These are less multilateral and bilateral reviews than a sort of unilateral declaration of the Secretary of State’s personal and political agenda on this issue. If the multilateral system is broken, as claimed in the review, where is the determination to work with other Governments to fix the problem? Surely holding agencies to a unique set of DFID measurements will increase the bureaucratic demands and inefficiencies. In the bilateral review, there is an apparent shift from a partnership approach, working towards shared goals, to a contractual approach in which stakeholders are merely service providers meeting DFID’s own determined goals. Where is the evidence that this will be more effective and have a greater impact? Finally, I have asked this question several times: if meeting the sustainable development goals and ending poverty are not in the national interest, what is? What are the other national interests beyond building a more peaceful, secure and stable world?
Aid Reviews — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: International Affairs
Christopher Murray Alexander Law (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Where is the voice of civil society—particularly the voice of civil society in developing countries—in these reviews? Does the Minister recognise that well-supported and active civil societies are crucial in building peaceful and stable democracies that can allow economies to grow and poverty to be overcome?
Aid Reviews — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: International Affairs
Martin John Docherty-Hughes (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Less money, less aid and less influence is the reality of Brexit internationally. Given the projected reductions in growth as a result of Brexit, does the Minister not recognise that it will have a profound impact on the UK Government’s ability to meet their 0.7% commitment?
Aid Reviews — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: International Affairs
Kirsten Frances Oswald (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Minister has referred to Brexit a number of times, but he said at the beginning that the reviews had fully taken account of what I think he called a change of circumstance, so he is surely able to clarify the position of finance for projects through the European development fund. Will he do that?
Aid Reviews — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Environment
Callum McCaig (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The biggest threat to global development is surely climate change. What steps is the Department taking, and what discussions is it having with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy about the adoption of a co-ordinated approach to that global threat?
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Law and Crime
Mhairi Black (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): If I wanted to use this Bill to get rid of sanctions, that is exactly what it would say on the cover. I have explained, and I cannot be more sincere in explaining, that this Bill is not about removing sanctions. It is a genuine attempt to bring some consistency to a system that is allowing far too many people to fall through the cracks. It is about ensuring that individuals are not left without. That is compassion.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Government Operations
Elizabeth Anne McLaughlin (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Would the hon. Gentleman care to tell me how that fits in with what DWP staff have told me about the aspirations that they have? They do not call them targets; they call them aspirations, and they have an aspiration to sanction a certain number of people every week.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Labor
Alison Emily Thewliss (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman is saying about the process for claimants getting into work, but does he agree that there is no logic to the case of one of my constituents who found a job and was informed by the DWP that he was at risk of sanction for failing to apply for more jobs while he was waiting to take up that job? Is that not absolutely illogical?
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Social Welfare
Christopher Charles Stephens (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the next step involves someone in that position having to phone an 0345 number, for which a mobile phone provider will charge 45p a minute? Can he explain why the Government have rejected the advice of the Social Security Advisory Committee that all phone calls to the DWP should be on 0800 numbers and therefore free?
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Government Operations
Mhairi Black (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I want to respond to the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mims Davies). As the hon. Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns) is sincerely saying, the job of Government is to listen, and they should do so constantly. If they do listen, they will find that there is huge disparity throughout the UK. While it is fine to say in theory that the system should be consistent, the Government should listen to the facts, and the reality of the stories that we are hearing today is that that is not happening. Let us listen and introduce something that will formalise that consistency. That is all that this Bill is about.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Labor
Deidre Leanne Brock (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman is saying about DWP staff, but I wonder whether the fact that total DWP staff numbers are down 34% since 2010 has some bearing on the issues he is raising.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Social Welfare
Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way during his extended speech. He might as well be reading from a cookery book, because you are adding nothing new to this debate. Sixty-five per cent. of claims have to be overturned as a result of this failed system, so does the hon. Gentleman accept that what he refers to as the fractional percentage of people who commit fraud is far outweighed by the vast number of people who need support? A social security system should protect those people when they need protection most.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Social Welfare
John MacKenzie Nicolson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Does the hon. Lady share my enormous concern—it sounds as though she does—with that scrounger tone? My father was the manager of the largest social security office in Scotland, and he always said that the problem was not people claiming what they were not entitled to; it was all the people who did not claim what they were entitled to because of the sense of shame and the narrative propagated by Government Members.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Education
Kirsten Frances Oswald (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I echo the hon. Lady’s sentiments and her comments on the correlation between sanctions and food banks. Does she agree that it is a sad situation that Scotland now has not only food banks, but school uniform banks, and that that is directly linked to the inability of families, through no fault of their own, to support their children in going to school?
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Labor
Christopher Murray Alexander Law (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): To go back to the evidence from the National Audit Office, we must be reading two different reports. I have also looked at the report, and according to the official analysis of the benefit sanction system, there is absolutely no evidence that the sanctions regime imposed by the DWP has a positive effect on job outcomes. I would just like to get that on the record, because it is in complete contradiction to what the hon. Lady has just said.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Social Welfare
Mhairi Black (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I welcome the comments made by the hon. and learned Lady and by the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) on the importance of the hardship fund and the good it can do. Will she therefore support the principle of the Bill? Instead of waiting and making the individual responsible for applying to the hardship fund, the Bill would mean that the individual’s entitlement to a hardship payment is immediately assessed. Is that something she can support?
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Social Welfare
Michael Fraser Weir (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I normally say that I am very pleased to take part in a debate, but, unfortunately, I am not very pleased to do so today because we are having to discuss a terrible subject. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) on the way she introduced this very important Bill. I cannot match her passion and, Madam Deputy Speaker, you will be glad to hear that I will not match her length, but I want to make a few points I listened very carefully to what the hon. and learned Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer) said. Nobody on the SNP Benches disputes the fact that working is important—we all want everybody who is able to work to be in work, and that should be fundamental for everybody in every political party—but when she was talking about decision makers, she mentioned that we have a judicial system in which the judge does not know anything about the case. The fundamental difference is that such a person can go to court and present their case to the judge, but that is not possible in relation to decision makers in this process I want to comment on some of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns). I have always found him to be a reasonable chap, but I was disappointed by what he said. He made a point—it is often made by Conservative Members—that taxpayers and benefit claimants are somehow different and neither the twain shall meet. He must realise that many benefits claimants were taxpayers and probably will be taxpayers again in the future. He quoted Beveridge, but these people have paid into the system for many years, and they often find themselves having to claim benefits because they have had an accident, they are ill or have a mental illness, or for many other reasons. It is totally wrong to look at the two as different: benefits claimants have been and will be taxpayers, and they are trying to get from the system what they are entitled to, but the hon. Gentleman does not seem to accept that.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Social Welfare
Michael Fraser Weir (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): When my hon. Friend has been here as long as I have, she will realise that a political month can go on for a very, very long time The point is that many of the people who are subject to sanctions are vulnerable or, frankly, leading chaotic lifestyles because of mental illness. In its comments on the Bill, SAMH, which has a scheme in my constituency, said: "People with mental health problems are among the most vulnerable of benefit recipients, are disproportionately targeted to be sanctioned and are among the least likely to understand or be able to comply with the conditions attached to their benefit." SAMH also makes the point that "Sanctioning this group…serves no purpose other than to make their illness worse and their personal circumstances even harder to cope with—making employment a less, not more, likely outcome." In response to a Scottish Government consultation last October, it added that "The number of sanctions applied in Scotland doubled in the last year, and individuals with mental health problems are disproportionately affected." According to Mind, figures obtained by a freedom of information request in November 2015 showed that 19,259 people with mental health problems had their benefits stopped under sanction in 2014-15, compared with just 2,507 in 2011-12. That is a 668% rise in just three years, which cannot be just or right These people are already vulnerable. The reason that they are perhaps not fully compliant with the rules is not that they are wilful but that they are unable to do so. A sanction will make matters worse and will not make them more likely to get a job; in other words, it is a completely counterproductive process. In fact, it could be even worse than that, because these people are also the least likely to look into how they can then get a hardship payment or how they can appeal. We get people coming into my office after they have been sanctioned completely unaware of the system and how they go about appealing a sanction or how they go about getting a hardship payment, and that happens despite the work that we do and despite the excellent work that Angus Council’s welfare benefits team do to point people in the right direction There are people, particularly those with mental health problems, who simply fall through the cracks, and the danger of not having a unified system is that more and more people will fall through those cracks. Many other Members will have stories of people in similar circumstances. Crucially, however, the Government also did not accept the WPC’s recommendation that they should "establish a broad independent review of benefit conditionality and sanctions, to investigate whether sanctions are being applied appropriately, fairly and proportionately, in accordance with the relevant Regulations and guidance" that already exist.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Labor
Michael Fraser Weir (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It is absolutely incredible that such a thing could happen, which just goes to show the difficulties in the system as it works at the moment Many Government Members have claimed that international evidence clearly shows that benefit regimes supported by conditionality reduce unemployment and that the regime in the UK is clear and effective in promoting positive behaviours to help claimants back into work. However, a recent study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council found that most claimants’ experience of welfare conditionality and sanctions was a wholly negative one, creating widespread anxiety and feelings of disempowerment. That is hardly a shock to those of us who have had to deal with the issue when they have turned to us for help. More telling, however, is that a Government-backed employment project run by Oxford City Council and the DWP found in June that cutting benefit entitlements makes it less likely that unemployed people will find a job. It said: "Conventional wisdom suggests that taking money off benefit claimants (eg by sanctions or cutting benefit rates) acts as a financial incentive to get a job. Our analysis says that the opposite is in fact true".
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Labor
Peter Grant (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I have to disagree with my hon. Friend’s initial comment that he would not be able to match previous speakers’ passion, because I think he is doing that very well. In my constituency, when a major employer closed down, the DWP joined a taskforce to help the redundant workers back into work. The taskforce organised a half-day recruitment fair. Claimants who should have been signing on the day of the fair were told that they would be sanctioned if they met employers to get a job on the day they were supposed to sign on. Does he agree that changing legislation to prevent such things would improve the credibility and acceptability of any remaining sanctions?