argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Housing Benefit and Supported Housing — House of Commons, 2016-01-27
Topic: Macroeconomics
John Healey (Labour, Centre-left): We have not seen the information and we have not seen the evidence—we have not even seen the fag packet. Without the information and the evidence, why on earth did the Chancellor take this decision in the spending review before Christmas, thus pre-empting exactly what good policy and decision making should be based on?
Housing Benefit and Supported Housing — House of Commons, 2016-01-27
Topic: Social Welfare
Clive James Charles Betts (Labour, Centre-left): My right hon. Friend has illustrated his case by referring to people for whom the alternative may be much more expensive and less adequate care. There are other people, such as women fleeing domestic violence with their children, who come to very good accommodation in my constituency, who will have no alternative at all if those places are closed down as a result of these measures.
Housing Benefit and Supported Housing — House of Commons, 2016-01-27
Topic: Social Welfare
Owen Smith (Labour, Centre-left): Will the Minister confirm that the coalition Government, including the Tory party, spent £130 billion more than the previous Labour Government on welfare, breaching £1 trillion for the first time under any Government? Is that not a fact?
Housing Benefit and Supported Housing — House of Commons, 2016-01-27
Topic: Social Welfare
Barbara Mary Keeley (Labour, Centre-left): I am amazed. The Minister has started trotting out figures for the better care fund. That fund is back-loaded: the money will not reach councils until 2019-20, and is cancelled out by the new homes bonus being taken back at the same time. We have already lost an awful lot of support for older and vulnerable people Does the Minister believe, as he seems to have just said, that the most vulnerable will be supported by the welfare reforms? That is just not true, as we see from all the court cases that are going through. How will people in 2,300 units of housing for older people in Salford be protected? I advise the Minister not to talk about discretionary housing payments, as those have been shown to be insufficient.
Housing Benefit and Supported Housing — House of Commons, 2016-01-27
Topic: Social Welfare
Jessica Rose Phillips (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Minister for finally giving way. Could he just point out exactly how he has been helping to protect the most vulnerable in the 34 specialist women’s refuges that have shut since the Conservatives came to power? I also wonder whether he would like to join me this afternoon at the all-party group on domestic violence to meet pretty much every CEO from all the Women’s Aid organisations across the country and see what they think.
Housing Benefit and Supported Housing — House of Commons, 2016-01-27
Topic: Social Welfare
Alan Patrick Vincent Whitehead (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend underlines powerfully the importance of understanding just how early organisations such as the Society of St James and the ones her constituency have to take decisions about what they do in future. In that context, a one-year moratorium will not make any difference to those decisions, because those schemes are concerned about the long-term security of revenue. It is very likely—it is certainly not scaremongering—that those schemes will disappear immediately, not in the future. The whole system will be greatly the poorer as a result Whether the Minister thinks in retrospect that the problem was not of his own making because he did not notice it arriving from the Treasury, or whether he was told too late for him to do anything about it, or whether he did something and the Treasury ignored him, there is an issue for him to address right now. The central question for the Minister in my mind boils down to this: if we assess the impact on the organisations at the heart of the process of caring—in addition, they save the state large amounts of future public expenditure because they keep the people they care for and assist out of prisons, psychiatric institutions and emergency services by securing their accommodation in the community—what will he do immediately that specifically puts the problem right for the Society of St James in Southampton If the Minister does not have an answer to that question, he has a great deal of thinking to do about the wider issue. Up and down the country, those organisations—they are voluntary organisations rather than local authority organisations—find themselves holed below the water line. Unless the Minister can come up urgently with either a patch or a new boat, that will be the reality of the situation over the next period. I urge him to take action at the earliest possible opportunity to ensure that important organisations such as the Society of St James can continue their good work in future.
Housing Benefit and Supported Housing — House of Commons, 2016-01-27
Topic: Social Welfare
Jessica Rose Phillips (Labour, Centre-left): Will the hon. Gentleman recognise that it is not shroud waving? In this term and the last one, the Government exempted this group from every single one of their welfare reforms, having been forced to do so by alleged shroud waving. We are not saying no to the reform; we seek only an exemption for this group.
Housing Benefit and Supported Housing — House of Commons, 2016-01-27
Topic: Social Welfare
Jessica Rose Phillips (Labour, Centre-left): I could not agree more. The simple thing to do is to exempt this category. I think we all know that the Government are properly going to do that. We have waved our shrouds and, do you know what, in every single case, they listened. So stop me having to talk about this! Stop making me a shroud waver! Just do it Anyway, the 10 million quid over 12 months that the Government gave just before the election was intended to create new beds, and I have heard Ministers stand at that Dispatch Box and talk about the number of extra bed spaces that they have created. However, I know that every single bid that was put in for that fund will have made its calculation based on the existing rates of housing benefit. I also know that every bid, as part of its sustainability plan beyond the 12 months, will have contained calculations based on the existing rates of housing benefit. Without the housing benefit-plus settlement, the £10 million offered would have been completely meaningless. I know that because I helped to write three of the successful bids I have run refuges that survived solely on housing benefit contributions, without any recourse to the now non-existent Supporting People funds. At my charity, when times were tough and our refuge funding was cut in half, we sucked it up, made tough decisions and found new ways and new funds. We worked on different models to bring in support staff to our refuges. None of that would have been possible without the existing system of housing benefit. We got all those Tories coming to see us because we had done such a great job of cutting our cloth to suit our needs, but we were only able do it because of housing benefit. Day one of this change would have closed at least 20 of our bed spaces. That would have resulted in turning away more than a hundred women and at least as many vulnerable children every year This week, I spoke in the debate on childcare and begged once again for the responsible Minister to consider exempting victims of domestic violence from the rules on the 16-hour threshold for increased childcare. He stopped me in my tracks and made that commitment. I am begging the Ministers here today to do what he did, and what the Home Secretary is trying to do, to protect victims of domestic violence and their children. The Minister might think that this is hyperbole, but I shall say it anyway: without the exemption, what he is proposing will, for many, be a death penalty. Please don’t do it.
Housing Benefit and Supported Housing — House of Commons, 2016-01-27
Topic: Social Welfare
Owen Smith (Labour, Centre-left): In my part of the world, often the best thing that is said about the Conservative party is, "You know where you are with them: they may be cruel, but at least they’re competent." Following today’s debate, however, and particularly after this week for the Department for Work and Pensions, one must wonder about at least the latter part of that sentence We began the week with the Government’s defeat in the other place on their ludicrous suggestion that incomes should be carved out of the meaningful measure of child poverty that the previous Labour Government introduced. The Government then had to acknowledge that they should exempt those in receipt of carer’s allowance from the punishment of the benefit cap, despite the fact that they spent £50,000 in the courts just a few weeks ago defending the inclusion of carers under the aegis of that cap. This morning, we saw extraordinary events in the Court of Appeal as the Government found their bedroom tax ruled not only cruel, but unlawful, because it discriminates against disabled people—in particular my friend and fellow countryman, Paul Rutherford, his wife, Susan, and their profoundly disabled child, Warren. He was discriminated against by the bedroom tax for many years, but he had his day in court today. I can only hope that the Government reflect on the meaning of that ruling with a little more grace than the Prime Minister during today’s Question Time, and that they will come back to the House to give us satisfaction by getting rid of the bedroom tax.
Housing Benefit and Supported Housing — House of Commons, 2016-01-27
Topic: Social Welfare
Barbara Mary Keeley (Labour, Centre-left): Does my hon. Friend agree that it was always unfair to include carers under the bedroom tax and the benefit cap because their caring role means that they cannot go out to work or increase the number of hours that they do? These 60,000 unpaid family carers already save the state billions, so is it not time for them to be exempted? We call on the Government to take action straight away.
Prisons and Probation — House of Commons, 2016-01-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): I beg to move, That this House believes UK prisons are in crisis; notes the increasingly high rates of violence, self-harm and drug use in prisons, and the resulting pressure on the NHS; further notes that the last report by the outgoing Chief Inspector of Prisons warned that outcomes across the prison estate were the worst for ten years; believes that no prison staff should have to go to work facing a threat to their safety; notes with concern the decision of the Scottish Government, announced in its recent draft Scottish Budget for 2016-17, to reduce funding for the Scottish Prison Service by almost £40 million in cash terms; is appalled by the disturbing allegations of violence at Medway Secure Training Centre; regrets the Government’s inadequate response to the Harris Review and to mental health in prisons; is concerned that re-offending rates are so high; believes the Government lets down victims of crime by failing to enshrine their rights in law; regrets the Government’s reckless privatisation of the probation service and the job losses in community rehabilitation companies; and calls on the Government to put all G4S-run prisons, STCs and detention centres into special measures, to immediately review the implementation of Transforming Rehabilitation and to publish the Memorandum of Understanding on Judicial Cooperation with Saudi Arabia Prison and probation staff have some of the toughest jobs in our country. With few exceptions, they work with industry, compassion and resolution to protect the public and to help to change lives through rehabilitation. All of us in this House owe them our gratitude. Over six years in the shadow Justice team, but also as MP for one of Britain’s most iconic prisons, HMP Wormwood Scrubs, and, in the past, as a criminal barrister, I have visited many prisons and spoken to both prisoners and staff, and to their representatives in the Prisoner Learning Alliance and Napo, to which I also pay tribute The inescapable conclusion is that the prison system in this country—I use the term to include both the adult and youth estates—is not working, contrary to the famous pronouncement of the noble Lord Howard. From the Lord Chancellor’s statements and speeches so far, I think he may agree. The question for today is: what are he and his Government going to do about it? It is certainly the view of many in his party that prison is not working. We have waited some time for a parliamentary debate on the crisis in our prisons. This will be the fourth in a week. I hope that is a reflection of the new priority that parliamentarians in both Houses are giving to this issue.
Prisons and Probation — House of Commons, 2016-01-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): I take the intervention in the spirit in which it is meant, but I hope we are not going to have a war over who did what when. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman will see in a moment, we are talking not about the last 10 years, but the last 50 years I should make a special mention of the debate on prison reform in the other place on 21 January in the name of the noble Lord Fowler. Lest the Lord Chancellor take exception to the wording of today’s motion— "That this House believes UK prisons are in crisis"— the noble Lord ended his excellent speech with these words: "In 1970, we faced a prisons crisis; today, we face a prisons scandal." Every speech in that debate was superb, and I hope this House can live up to those high standards today Lord Fowler set out five proposals. In concluding the debate, the Minister, Lord Faulks, said he "had no difficulty in supporting any of them".—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 January 2016; Vol. 768, c. 910-940.] I assume the same can be said for the Lord Chancellor. To remind him, the five proposals are: deprivation of liberty, but not to make life as uncomfortable as possible; end overcrowding; reduce the number of people sent to prison; do so by re-examining sentences; and pass responsibility to the governor and staff. The Lord Chancellor has spoken approvingly of the last of those points, but does he agree with Lord Fowler and his Minister on the other four points? More importantly, if he does, how will he set out to accomplish them? That is not a trick question. I do not know whether the Lord Chancellor is in muesli mode or Shipley mode today. He has made some fine rhetorical flourishes on the subject of prison reform and set reviews in progress, but what action do his Government intend to take I am happy to give the Lord Chancellor a platform today to add some substance to the rhetoric—it is a platform rather than a scaffold—but I will do so by setting out the scale of the task before him. Let me begin with the basic issue of safety. In the 12 months to September 2015, there were 267 deaths in prison custody—95 suicides, up from 60 in the same period in 2010; 153 deaths from natural causes, up from 123; and seven homicides. There have been the same number of homicides in prison in the past two years as there were in the preceding eight. In the 12 months to June 2015, there were 28,881 reported incidents of self-harm, up by 21% in just a year; 4,156 assaults on staff, a 20% rise from the year before; and 578 serious assaults on staff, a rise of 42% from the year before. Tragically, a prison officer, Lorraine Barwell—it was the first such incident of its type in a quarter of a century—died in July last year after being the victim of an attack in the line of duty one month earlier. We owe it to her and her family to ensure that her colleagues are as safe as possible.
Prisons and Probation — House of Commons, 2016-01-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend—I know he speaks from a position of knowledge on the subject—is right. I will come to that in a moment The prison riot squad was called out 343 times last year—once a day on average—compared with 223 times the year before and 118 times in 2010. Alcohol finds have nearly trebled since 2010. From mobile phones to drugs and legal highs, the list of what people can smuggle into prison at the moment is elastic. According to one prisoner at HMP Oakwood, a prison that the previous Lord Chancellor called "an excellent model for the future"—[Official Report, 5 February 2013; Vol. 558, c. 114.], it was easier to get drugs than soap, so there are some restrictions. Earlier this month, seven officers reported suffering ill effects from inadvertently inhaling legal highs. You couldn’t make that up.
Prisons and Probation — House of Commons, 2016-01-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): I agree with most, if not all, of the provisions in the Bill. The issue we are dealing with here, however, is smuggling contraband into prisons by a number of means, including the increasing use of drones Turning to overcrowding, figures released by the Prisons Minister on Monday showed that 25% of all prisoners are in overcrowded cells. In some prisons, such as Wandsworth, the figure rises to over 80%. It is, in the words of the chief inspector, "sometimes exacerbated by extremely poor environments and squalid conditions." This memorably led one member of staff to tell him, of a cell in Wormwood Scrubs, that he "wouldn’t keep a dog in there" In the past 25 years, the prison population has almost doubled, from under 45,000 in 1990 to over 85,000 now. It is projected to increase to 90,000 by 2020. Staff are already struggling, following cuts on an unprecedented scale. There are 9,760 fewer operational prison staff than in 2010, and nearly 5,000 fewer prison officers since 2010. Some 250 prison governors resigned or moved jobs in the past five years On education, the Prisoners Education Trust reports that prisoners tell them they have to choose between going to the library and having a shower, because of the lack of staff to escort them. Nearly half of prisoners report having no qualifications and 42% of people in prison say they had been expelled or permanently excluded from school. The Lord Chancellor appointed Dame Sally Coates, the distinguished former head of Burlington Danes Academy, to review prisoner education. Perhaps he will let us know what progress she has made On mental health, according to an answer given to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), 60% of prisoners who took their own life last year were not receiving assistance under the assessment, care in custody and teamwork process, which is supposed to identify prisoners at a heightened risk of suicide or self-harm.
Prisons and Probation — House of Commons, 2016-01-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Steve Rotheram (Labour, Centre-left): My constituency has two prisons—Altcourse, which is privately run by G4S, and Liverpool Walton. Both were inspected recently. The common factor in both inspections was understaffing. Does my hon. Friend think that some of the factors he is identifying are due to the staff numbers at both prisons being the lowest in living memory?
Prisons and Probation — House of Commons, 2016-01-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Rupa Asha Huq (Labour, Centre-left): On the Justice Committee, we interviewed the chief inspector and found his answers on ministerial interference in his reports very interesting. Does my hon. Friend agree that, to the outside world, the fact that the chief inspector’s contract is not being renewed makes it look like he was doing an effective job in holding the MOJ to account, and is now being silenced?
Prisons and Probation — House of Commons, 2016-01-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point, and one that I will come on to If the Lord Chancellor is a prison reformer, as he is now billed, we are prepared to work with him. He could start with the Prison Reform Trust report, "Correction or care? the use of custody for children in trouble", published last year, which looked at successful models around the world. Successful prisons are becoming smaller, more focused and more rooted locally, which is why he is right to abandon his predecessor’s plans for a new borstal. Although he is also to be commended for wishing to close unsuitable prisons, if, as a consequence, prisons are built a long way from friends and family or we move from local to titan prisons, that will have its own drawbacks We need prison watchdogs with real teeth and independence. The outgoing inspector, Nick Hardwick, has done a great job in spite of, not because of the Government. This brings me to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq). The reports last week that the MOJ had tried to control or muzzle him were outrageous. I welcome the Lord Chancellor’s announcement yesterday that he will retain Mr Hardwick’s expertise as head of the Parole Board, but let us use this opportunity to shake things up. We need a stronger, more independent inspectorate that is able to produce reports with total independence from the MOJ and to conduct more frequent and unannounced inspections.
Prisons and Probation — House of Commons, 2016-01-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): I accept entirely what the hon. Lady says. I am painting a realistic picture, as the necessary starting point for the improvements that Members on both sides of the House wish to see. There have been improvements. The decline in the number of people in youth custody, from more than 3,000 to less than 1,000, is extremely impressive. It has happened under successive Governments. We are concerned, however, about the condition and treatment of the young people still in custody and the type of facility they are in. The incidents at Medway and elsewhere are examples of how things are failing in that sector as much as elsewhere My hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) wrote in response to a prison report: "Too often we see the response to a poor inspection report centre on the appointment of a new governor or the assertion that things have improved dramatically since the poor inspection took place." It is time we put much greater effort into preventing people from getting involved in crime in the first place. We need a renewed focus on education and stepping in to divert young people from a life of crime. We must do better for trans people in our prison system. The "Dying for Justice" report, by the Institute of Race Relations, and the Harris review both revealed that black, Asian and minority ethnic people were over-represented at every stage of the criminal justice process. Yesterday, I spoke at a meeting here on the discriminatory effects of joint enterprise charging decisions on BAME individuals and groups, and asked the Lord Chancellor to examine that area of law, which his predecessor failed to do In the light of the number of Members wishing to speak, I shall terminate my remarks. I welcome the change in tone on prisons since the Lord Chancellor’s appointment, but so far that is about all it is. It is possible to be tough on crime, to put the protection of the public first and to make sure prisons play their role in punishment as well as in rehabilitation, but it is also true, to quote Dostoevsky, who knew a thing or two about crime and punishment, that, "the degree of civilisation of a society can be judged by entering its prisons." It is in the self-interest of every citizen that prisoners, having served their time, become productive members of society and do not continue to pose a risk through reoffending. The Lord Chancellor may not be "a muesli muncher", as he put it yesterday, but he is the Minister for porridge—and it is about time he served up something substantial.
Prisons and Probation — House of Commons, 2016-01-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Tulip Rizwana Siddiq (Labour, Centre-left): The right hon. Gentleman may be aware that the number of attacks on our prison staff has increased by 42%, and these range from severe cuts to damages to internal organs and fractures. In order to keep safe the people who, as he has outlined, work so hard in our prisons, will he order a review into safety at work for prison staff?