argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-08
Topic: Housing
Christopher Paul Farrelly (Labour, Centre-left): Perhaps I can anticipate something that my right hon. Friend will not welcome in this Budget. Does he agree that, be it in south Yorkshire or north Staffordshire, if one member of a family with children is earning £25,000 and their partner is earning, part-time, £6,000, £7,000 or £8,000, that family is not rich, and if they are living in affordable housing the incentive is for one partner to reduce their hours or even give up work entirely? Does he agree that it is not right—it is an insult—for the Chancellor to say that their rents are being subsidised by other working people?
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-08
Topic: Mixed Topics
John Healey (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right and anticipates my point. What he says signals serious trouble for many people resulting from this Budget Just as there are alternatives at the macro level, there are alternatives at the policy level. The Chancellor wants £12 billion in social security cuts. It is the Tories’ choice to hit working and low-income families, when the Chancellor could have cut back even further on the tax reliefs for buy-to-let landlords, which at present cost the taxpayer about £11 billion a year. He could have chosen not to sell the public’s interest in RBS while it still means a £13 billion loss to the taxpayer. The Budget promises pain for many people who can do little to deal with the financial shortfall they will suffer. They are trapped by low wages and high rents. Many are only just coping now, and this is a Budget that will strike fear and desperation into their lives I got an email yesterday from Mrs Smith—let us call her Mrs Smith—of Rawmarsh. She says that she is "very worried" about the cuts to tax credits going ahead: "I struggle as it is. I’m married with three children. I work long hours, and don’t see my family much as it is. I can’t afford to do my nursing as I can’t cut my hours down. I haven’t even taken my children on holiday in eight years" This welfare policy fails the head test as well as the heart test. Many of the cuts will punish poor families but not bring down the benefits bill because the Government are not getting to grips with the root causes of those welfare costs. We need a long-term plan now to control housing benefit costs, and we need to switch public spending from paying benefits to building homes on a big scale. In that way, we can build more affordable homes and make the Exchequer a profit in the long term through lower housing benefit bills This is a Budget with no compassion and little credibility, a Budget that risks repeating many of the mistakes of the last five years. Over the next five years, it will be our Labour task to prove that there is an alternative, not just as a protest, but as a programme for a different Labour Government from 2020.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-08
Topic: Other
Natascha Engel (Labour, Centre-left): Order. Before I call the next speaker, it has been pointed out that a vast number of people are trying to get in to this important debate. I do not want to impose a time limit, but if Members can keep to eight minutes and make very few and very short interventions, I think we can get everybody in. With that in mind, I call John Redwood.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-08
Topic: Other
Natascha Engel (Labour, Centre-left): Order. Quite a number of people have dropped out of the debate, so the limit, which is not a fixed limit, is now more or less 12 minutes—[Interruption.] Members do not have to speak that long, but the limit is roughly 12 minutes. I call Sammy Wilson.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-08
Topic: Housing
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (Labour, Centre-left): Indeed; my hon. Friend is absolutely correct. Although London has very high property prices and a number of extremely wealthy people—it is the centre for some of the world’s wealthiest people—it also has appalling levels of poverty. Some of those people in desperate poverty are being forced out of London by a combination of the high rents and the benefit cap, and the proposal now is to reduce the benefit cap. I am not pleased that we have to spend £25,000 or more on supporting some families, but from the way that this statistic is presented by the Chancellor, one would imagine that the entirety of that £25,000 went immediately to that family. Well, it does not; it goes straight into the pockets of a private landlord, just as the in-work benefit often goes to subsidise low wages. I am pleased that we are getting something approaching a living wage, though it is not very different from what the minimum wage would have been by that time anyway. We must look very carefully at the issues surrounding this Budget. There are also other problems for young people, such as cuts in benefit, their inability to access housing or to get a reasonable level of room rate if they are single, the continuation of the low wage rates and the conversion of all grants into loans for those from poorer backgrounds who were hoping, planning and aiming to go to university. What is it that the Conservative party has against the young people of this country? I find it very strange I represent a constituency that, in housing terms, has about 40% council tenancies, about 30% social private rents and about 30% owner-occupation. Because of the benefit cap and the very high rents in the private rented sector, many people are being forced out of the community. The same thing is happening all across central London. Those who say that it does not matter because they do not represent a London constituency should think on: this principle could apply everywhere else. The Chancellor’s proposals on housing are very interesting.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-08
Topic: Housing
Clive Stanley Efford (Labour, Centre-left): Oh God; it’ll be a good one, I know I admit that we did not build enough houses. I was here, firmly on the Back Benches, when we were in government, and the lack of house building, particularly social rented housing, was one of the big issues that I argued for, but right at the end we did invest a lot of money in building social housing, and the last Government scrapped it. The only social housing they have built and claimed credit for in the past five years was funded by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne when he was Housing Minister. I know that because I was his Parliamentary Private Secretary.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-08
Topic: Housing
Christian John Patrick Matheson (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way so early in his speech. Can he point to any measures in the Red Book that the Chancellor will be introducing to prevent a further crash in the American sub-prime mortgage market, which was, of course, the cause of the circumstances to which he has just referred?
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-08
Topic: Housing
Clive Stanley Efford (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman just cannot get away with what he said. That money was left over from the Labour Government. The house building programme that we started was scrapped by the Conservative Government when they took office. More houses could have been built if they had not done that.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-08
Topic: Housing
Harry Harpham (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman mentioned affordable housing. Is he aware that the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that a 1% reduction in rent will lead to 40,000 fewer affordable homes being built over that period? Does he think that his constituents will welcome that?
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-13
Topic: Housing
Emily Thornberry (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his generosity What would the Secretary of State say to the 19,000 families in Islington who are on the waiting list for social housing about how long they might need to wait to be rehoused?
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-13
Topic: Housing
Clive James Charles Betts (Labour, Centre-left): On that point, the Budget changed the future rental income forecast for social housing from the consumer prices index plus 2%, to minus 1%. The National Housing Federation said that that will reduce housing association revenue by £3.9 billion in this Parliament, and that a conservative estimate suggests a reduction of 27,000 homes being built because of measures in the Budget. How does the Secretary of State begin to justify that?
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-13
Topic: Housing
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): I am interested in the Secretary of State’s proposals to reform planning regulations, but will he look carefully at unintended consequences? We all want an increase in the number of homes being built, but we do not necessarily want to lose valuable employment land.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-13
Topic: Housing
Peter Christopher Dowd (Labour, Centre-left): On the issue of brownfield sites, my constituency has areas that are heavily contaminated and need significant remediation. Can the Secretary of State advise local authorities and developers where they can get support for that remediation?
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-13
Topic: Housing
Clive James Charles Betts (Labour, Centre-left): The details of this new measure are going to be interesting. Either we are going to have a cliff-edge where people suddenly start paying a lot more rent because they have earned a little more money, or we are going to have to bring in a taper system, which is another form of taxation. Does my hon. Friend agree that we will have a system whereby local authorities are in effect going to have to know the incomes of every single tenant so they can check when people go over this threshold? A massive bureaucracy will have to be created simply to implement this very small measure.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-13
Topic: Housing
Emma Elizabeth Reynolds (Labour, Centre-left): We support the local plans. It seemed that the Minister for Housing and Planning was not that bothered about them—I remember an interview he did with Inside Housing in which he said it was not that important whether local areas had local plans—but the Government seem to have done an about-turn on that as I received a nice letter from him today, spelling out how important the local plan process is. We think it is important for local people to have a say over what goes on in their areas. We have big questions about the Government’s proposals, which we have only just seen and on which we would like more detail. How will the Government still ensure that local people have that say? How will they ensure that local infrastructure is delivered? And how will they ensure that affordable homes are also delivered on some of these sites? Those are serious questions, we would welcome answers to them and we would like to see more details of the proposals that the Government put forward on Friday We are facing the biggest housing crisis in a generation. In England, we are building only half the homes we need. I know we have heard from the Mayor of London—perhaps I should call him the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson)—but in London we are building only one third of the homes we need. We have had the lowest level of home ownership for 30 years under a Government who claim to be a party of home ownership. The Government urgently need to get a grip of this problem. The result of their Budget will be £60 billion of public sector debt added because of their changes and 14,000 fewer affordable homes, according to the OBR. That is hardly a record worthy of Macmillan In conclusion, this should have been a Budget to support working people.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-13
Topic: Housing
Emily Thornberry (Labour, Centre-left): What does my hon. Friend think of the fact that the housing benefit bill has gone up by 60% and that we are talking about working people here, 98% of whom are tenants in the private rented sector? We continue to have an unsustainable housing benefit bill because of the rise in private sector rents.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-13
Topic: Housing
Emma Elizabeth Reynolds (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend raises an important point. In this area, we spend a lot of government money—95%—on housing benefit, and only 5% on bricks and mortar and building affordable homes. That clearly is not a sustainable or wise use of public funds. The way to bring the housing benefit bill down is by tackling the underlying drivers of low pay and high housing costs, but this Government are tackling neither.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-13
Topic: Housing
Emma Elizabeth Reynolds (Labour, Centre-left): It is wonderful that the hon. Lady has been visiting her constituency—I was in mine, too. Since the reforms of the housing revenue account were brought forward—the last Labour Government proposed them but, to be fair, they were carried on by this Government in the last Parliament—Labour councils have been outbuilding Tory councils quite considerably.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-13
Topic: Housing
Emma Elizabeth Reynolds (Labour, Centre-left): I will not take lectures from somebody who believes that 80% of market rent is affordable for people in London, or from somebody who calls in planning applications, such as the one for Mount Pleasant in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), to drive down, not up, the number of affordable homes. That is not what I call a good record on affordable homes.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-13
Topic: Housing
Lilian Rachel Greenwood (Labour, Centre-left): Having visited my constituency, my hon. Friend knows that one thing the local authorities are doing is investing in our social housing and ensuring that it is of a decent standard. Does she share the consternation of the chief executive of my local arm’s length management organisation, Nottingham City Homes, who notes that the reduction in social rents will lead to a reduction in investment and a failure to invest in the housing standards that tenants would like?
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-13
Topic: Housing
Emma Elizabeth Reynolds (Labour, Centre-left): We will look at those proposals in detail. As for what my hon. Friend has just said, we need to ensure that social housing providers are in a position to build more homes. We want housing associations and councils to build more homes, as there is, I think we can all agree, an acute shortage of affordable housing in this country. We also need to ensure that housing associations have the funding mechanisms in place to continue to invest in their stock. One of the proudest achievements of the previous Labour Government was the decent homes programme. Those homes were refurbished some 10 to 15 years ago, and there is a continual process of investing in the existing stock In conclusion, this Budget should have been about supporting working people and those who want to get on, rather than about punishing hard work. It should have been about tackling the long-term challenges facing our country—the productivity challenge, the balance of payments deficit, the housing crisis, the devolution agenda and so much more. Instead, this is a Budget that will hit hard-working people on low incomes, families with children, women and young people. It is a Budget that the OBR says will result in fewer homes, not more. It is a Budget that was more about politics than economics. It is more about the short-term needs of one man whose real mission is to move next door and take over the keys to No.10, rather than the long-term needs of the country.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-13
Topic: Mixed Topics
Andrew John Gwynne (Labour, Centre-left): On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I inform the House that today I have been contacted by a police officer from Greater Manchester police regarding correspondence between me and some of my constituents about Audenshaw school in my constituency. It is not my intention to release the information requested by the police because I consider letters between constituents and me as a Member of Parliament to be confidential unless I am instructed to release them by a court. May I place that on the record and ask you, Mr Deputy Speaker, whether that is also your understanding?
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-13
Topic: Other
Lindsay Harvey Hoyle (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman is correct in what he has said, and whether or not to release those letters is a decision that he must take, based on the information that he holds. The point is certainly on the record because we are all aware of it and people will read about it tomorrow.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-13
Topic: Housing
Catherine Elizabeth West (Labour, Centre-left): Let me deal with aspects of the question of expenditure in turn. First, the employment training levy is being levied on small businesses by your Government. It is not a Labour proposal, but I support it because it is about investing in the workplace. Secondly, the position on student maintenance grants amounts to cost shunting—taking the costs from the university and putting them on to the individual. I referred to a case of a student owing £56,000, so instead of it sitting on the balance books of the Chancellor, it is sitting on those of the individual, which is a bad thing. Thirdly, we spent £60 billion on housing benefit over the last Parliament. We should have invested more of that in new build housing. We should not forget that council housing is not a cost. It is a net contributor to the economy because the rent is so low that housing benefit is not payable on many council properties. Housing benefit is mainly payable in the private rented sector. By investing in social homes, we will be saving the housing benefit bill in the longer term. Finally, on childcare, your own pledge by your own Government is 30 hours per week—
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-13
Topic: Housing
Deborah Angela Elspeth Marie Abrahams (Labour, Centre-left): I dealt with that earlier in my speech In my constituency, more than 20,000 working families with nearly 30,000 children are claiming tax credits. That is two in three families, and three in four children. For them, tax credits mean keeping their heads above water. The changes in tax credits will be devastating for them and will undoubtedly result in an increase in child poverty, with a knock-on effect on those children’s educational attainment, health and life chances. The worsening inequalities are set to become intergenerational I must also mention the impact of the £30-a-week cut in additional support for people in the employment and support allowance work-related activity group, which is another punitive measure affecting extremely vulnerable people. The Disability Benefits Consortium believes that the 300,000 disabled people who are already living in poverty will be pushed further into that condition Finally, let me say something about housing policy, the inheritance measures and wealth inequalities, especially in the context of land and property. In 2002, it was estimated that 69% of land in the United Kingdom was owned by 0.6% of the population. In the six years to 2011, the number of landholdings had been reduced by 10%, but the size of those holdings had increased by 12%, so even fewer people owned even more land. The inheritance tax measure is but a drop in the ocean when it comes to addressing the concentration of wealth that is held by a tiny elite. Many people who are involved in housing policy emphasise that if we are to solve the housing crisis as well as building more homes, we must tackle the cost and availability of land and the volatility in the market. Given that the average house price in the United Kingdom is more than £180,000, it has been estimated that it will take 22 years for people with low and middle incomes to save up a deposit.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-13
Topic: Other
Natascha Engel (Labour, Centre-left): Order. Before I call the next speaker, may I say that since I raised the limit everybody has taken the maximum number of interventions and therefore we are getting a bit pressed for time again? We will leave the limit at seven minutes, but may I just ask everyone to keep interventions to a minimum and make them short? If we do that, we might get there.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation — House of Commons, 2015-07-13
Topic: Housing
Sue Hayman (Labour, Centre-left): I am delighted to speak in today’s debate, during which we have heard many excellent maiden speeches. Since being elected to serve as MP for Workington, I have been privileged to meet many young, hard-working people who only want to do well in life and make a positive contribution to the communities in which they live. For example, this coming weekend I am proud that I am going to be presenting the awards at the Gen2 graduation ceremony, celebrating the achievements of students in engineering and other technical disciplines. I want to draw attention to the particular and disproportionate impact the Government’s Budget proposals will have on young people—I want to ask the Minister what he thinks young people have done to deserve such a kicking. It is truly shocking that they are going to be bearing such a heavy load in these Budget proposals, which mean that they are increasingly going to be paying to support the older generations, who are better off than they are. The Budget divides young from old, as well as rich from poor, and will do nothing but drive down young people’s aspirations in my constituency. Young people are three times more likely to be unemployed in the UK than they are in Germany, and for those who are in work this new "national living wage" will be paid only to those who are over 25. That is unacceptable, as it leaves younger workers on a much lower salary for doing the same job. Young people who have children will be particularly hard hit, as their benefits will be deducted far more quickly than their earnings will be increasing On top of that, young people who aspire to climb the ladder out of poverty and go to university will now be thinking twice, because the student maintenance grant is going to be scrapped and replaced with yet another loan, only creating more debt for our poorest families Let me move on to housing. There is a crisis in housing in our country, particularly in affordable housing—both to buy and to rent. Instead of looking at real sensible solutions to support young people into their own homes, this Budget will stop housing benefit for those under the age of 21. The implications of that are enormous. I do not know whether the Government have properly thought through this policy. In my constituency of Workington, one local housing authority, Impact Housing, has estimated that it will lead to an extra 200 young people becoming homeless. My constituency does not particularly have a homeless problem, and I do not want to see the Government create one, thank you very much. The proposals talk about exempting vulnerable people, but I ask the Minister how he will assess who is vulnerable. Why should they be assessed as vulnerable?